Ingredient

Hollandaise

Hollandaise is butter suspended in a small amount of acidified egg yolk. It is an emulsion held together by the yolk, and it splits for exactly two reasons: too much heat, or butter added faster than the yolk can take it.

How it holds together

Butter and water do not mix. Egg yolk contains lecithin and proteins that sit at the boundary between the two, with one end comfortable in fat and the other in water, and that is what keeps millions of tiny butter droplets suspended rather than pooling.

The yolk can only stabilise so much butter per yolk, and it can only do it while it is warm enough to be fluid and cool enough not to scramble. That window — warm, not hot — is the whole discipline of the sauce.

Everything else in the recipe supports it. The reduction of vinegar or lemon supplies acid, which helps the emulsion and cuts the richness. The small amount of water lets the yolk spread thinly enough to do its job.

Making it

1. Reduce white wine vinegar with shallot and peppercorns, or simply use lemon juice and a spoonful of water.
2. Melt the butter and let it settle. Skim the foam and leave the milky solids behind — clarified butter emulsifies far more reliably.
3. Whisk the yolks with the acid over a pan of barely simmering water, not touching it, until pale, thickened and roughly tripled in volume. This sabayon stage is where most of the work is.
4. Take the bowl off the heat. Add the warm butter in a thin, steady trickle, whisking constantly. Slowly at first; you can speed up once it has taken.
5. If it thickens too far to whisk, add a teaspoon of warm water. Thick sauce is the state just before splitting.
6. Season with salt, more lemon and a little cayenne, and keep it somewhere barely warm. It does not survive reheating.

Rescuing a split hollandaise

A split sauce looks greasy and grainy, with visible butter separating.

• If it split from heat, take it off immediately and whisk in an ice cube. Cooling it fast often brings it straight back.
• If it split from butter added too fast, start again in a clean bowl with a fresh yolk and a teaspoon of water, whisk it warm, and add the broken sauce to it slowly as if it were the butter.
• A tablespoon of warm water whisked in hard is worth trying first — it works surprisingly often.
• A stick blender is the reliable last resort.
• If the yolk has visibly scrambled into solid bits, strain them out and rebuild with a new yolk. There is no other way back.

The family

Hollandaise

Lemon or vinegar reduction. The base.

Béarnaise

Tarragon and shallot reduction, plus more tarragon at the end. For steak. See béarnaise.

Mousseline

Hollandaise folded with whipped cream. Lighter, and much more stable.

Maltaise

Blood orange in place of lemon. Traditionally with asparagus.

Beurre blanc

Not a hollandaise at all — no egg, and held together by the butter’s own emulsifiers. See beurre blanc.

Common questions