Hollandaise sauce is an emulsion of butter and lemon juice using egg yolks as the emulsifying agent, usually seasoned with salt and a little black pepper or cayenne pepper. It is a French sauce, named because it was believed to have been, or to have mimicked, a Dutch sauce. Hollandaise sauce is well known as a key ingredient in eggs Benedict.

Hollandaise is famous as a difficult sauce to make well and to hold. Properly made it should be smooth and creamy, and if beaten long enough will hold its shape as firmly as whipped cream. It tastes very rich and buttery, with a mild tanginess added by the lemon juice and seasonings. It must be made and served warm, but not hot. If the ingredients are not mixed properly, or if they are kept too cold or too hot, they will separate, resulting in an oily mess filled with particles of egg yolk.

Most authorities use something like the following method: A wire whisk and a thin-bottomed bowl work fine. The egg yolks must be beaten thoroughly first, then the lemon juice beaten into them. Then the butter (preferably clarified, meaning it has been melted and the milk solids removed) is added very slowly, while the mixture is being continually beaten and held over a pot of simmering water. (Room temperature is too low; most stovetop burners and even double boilers are too hot, and will overcook the egg.) The sauce must never come in touch of the simmering water. Eventually, it will thicken palpably, enough to resist the wrist. The butter can be added more quickly, it is seasoned, and it can be "held" in this state by being kept warm for some time. A normal ratio of ingredients is 1 egg yolk:1 teaspoon lemon juice:4-6 tablespoons butter.

The same method--without the simmering water, replacing the butter with oil, and adding some ground mustard--is used to make mayonnaise.

Alan Davidson notes a "sauce à la hollandoise" from François Marin's Dons de Comus (1758), but since that sauce included butter, flour, bouillon, and herbs, and omitted egg yolks, it may have been Dutch but it didn't figure in the genealogy of modern hollandaise. Davidson also quotes from Harold McGee (1990) who explains eggs are not needed at all and proper emulsification can simply be done with butter. He also states that if one does wish to use eggs they are not needed in as great quantities as normally called for in traditional recipes.

The sauce using egg yolks and butter appeared in the 19th century. Though various sources say it was first known as "sauce Isigny" (a town in Normandy said to have been renowned for the quality of its butter), Mrs. Isabella Beeton's Household Management had recipes in the first edition (1861) for "Dutch sauce, for fish" (p. 405) and its variant on the following page, "Green sauce, or Hollandaise verte". Her directions for hollandaise seem somewhat fearless:

"Put all the ingredients, except the lemon-juice, into a stew-pan; set it over the fire, and keep continually stirring. When it is sufficiently thick, take it off, as it should not boil..."

Indeed not. But Mrs. Beeton cheats, with a half-teaspoon of flour. Even a pinch of arrowroot in a modern hollandaise would be accounted a low subterfuge.

A dash of whipped cream folded into hollandaise makes a mousseline sauce; the addition of chopped shallots and tarragon to the lemon juice makes Bearnaise sauce.

External links

• Mrs. Beeton, The book of household Management, 1861: Project gutenberg e-text
• History of Sauces
• History of Hollandaise
• Hollandaise Name History

Sauces of the mayonnaise family

Holländische Sauce | Salsa holandesa | Hollandaisesaus | Hollandaisesås | 荷蘭醬