INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.  It should be warm, but not bubbling
hot. Combine the lemon juice and water in a small sauce pan. Bring to a
simmer, adding the salt.
Meanwhile, place one egg and the yolks of the other two in a smallish
saucepan.  Vigorously beat the egg and yolks with a wire whip for a minute
or so, until they are pale and thick.
Set the yolk mixture over moderately low heat and whisk in the hot lemon
juice by driblets. Continue whisking, not too fast, but reaching all over
the bottom and corners of the pan, until you have a foamy warm mass. Remove
from heat just as you see a wisp of steam rising. (Do not overheat or you
will coagulate the egg yolks.)
Immediately start beating in the warm butter by driblets, to make a thick,
creamy, light yellow sauce. Taste carefully for seasoning, adding salt,
pepper, and more lemon juice to taste.
  NOTES:
*  A quick and easy Hollandaise sauce -- Few small things seem to impress
dinner guests more than a good Hollandaise sauce. Perhaps this is because
the guests think it is difficult to execute. This recipe disproves that
notion; it makes it simple to produce a consistently good Hollandaise
sauce.  Use it over asparagus, to dip artichokes, with steak and rice, or
for anything you can imagine. The original recipe comes from Julia Child &
Company.
*  This sauce is really so easy to make, you should leave it to the last
minute.  It doesn't keep terribly well. Any egg yolk and butter sauce can
be kept only warm, not hot, or it will curdle. Also remember that sauces
with egg yolks are prime breeding grounds for sick-making bacteria.
*  Copper or stainless steel saucepans are best, as they transmit and hold
heat better than anything else. I often make this solely in Corningware
pots, and find that sometimes the sauce will not set after removing from
heat and adding the butter. In this case, return the mixture to very low
heat, whisking vigorously until the sauce achieves the desired thickness.
Too much heat will either curdle the egg yolks or cause the butter to
separate from the mixture.
: Difficulty:  easy to moderate.
: Time:  5 minutes.
: Precision:  approximate measurement OK.
: Chris Kent
: DEC Western Research Laboratory, Palo Alto, California, USA
: kent@decwrl.dec.com
: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust
From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

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