Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here!
Today, I’m starting my exploration of the sixth of my sauces of California Cuisine: Hollandaise sauce.
I will confess that I struggled with Hollandaise sauce–not so much with making a successful batch of it–it’s pretty foolproof to make using a hand-held immersion blender–but I struggled with whether or not it should have a berth in my list of California Cuisine sauces. After all, isn’t California Cuisine a rebellion against the heavy sauces of traditional French Cuisine?
The answer, of course, is rhetorical. California Cuisine is, at its heart, a movement that eschews the more traditional approaches to cooking that ruled the great kitchens of not only Paris, but also the grand kitchens of the United States. It wasn’t until the 1960’s and 1970’s that a new approach to cooking began to take hold in California, which emphasized fresh, of-the-moment ingredients cooked with minimal preparation and certainly de-emphasized any dish that featured a heavy sauce as a main component.
All that having been said, the uses for a good Hollandaise sauce (not to mention its derivatives, which include Bernaise, white wine sauce, Sauce Mousseline, Sauce Maltaise and Sauce Choron, to name a few) are virtually endless. These sauces pair with fish, fresh vegetables, beef, chicken, and of course, famously, with eggs. It’s hard to imagine a cuisine that doesn’t include this versatile sauce. And then there’s the deliciousness factor. It’s just hard to imagine a world where Hollandaise sauce doesn’t exist. So…since it’s my list, I’m including Hollandaise sauce and I hope to convince you that it deserves a place in California Cuisine by featuring what I would consider to be more “California Cuisine” interpretations of the sauce: lighter versions like sauce Mousseline, which adds whipped cream to lighten the sauce; and the brighter and more fresh-tasting versions of the sauce: Maltaise, which includes the juice and zest of the blood orange; and also Sauce Choron, which features tomato paste in its flavor profile.
But first, let’s talk a little about the history of Hollandaise sauce. Hollandaise sauce, or some form of it has been around for a long time–and I mean a LONG time. It was first documented in 1651 in La Varenne’s La Cuisinier Francoise. Later, Auguste Escoffier, the famous (or should I say infamous!) French chef included it as one of his five mother sauces of French Cuisine in the still influential cook/textbook Le Guide Culinaire. The rest is history. A good basic Hollandaise sauce is required learning in most culinary schools and has a place at the table in cuisines across the world.
So for today, I’m sharing my recipe for a basic Hollandaise sauce, which I made using my immersion blender.:
You can make it using a hand-held whisk, or a regular stand blender, also, but I find the immersion blender to be the easiest for not only prep, but clean-up. The recipe I use includes only one teaspoon of lemon juice–use more if you prefer your Hollandaise sauce on the tart side. Also, I like to use chipotle pepper in mine, but cayenne is a more traditional ingredient. By all means, experiment with this sauce–after all–there’s a reason why it’s considered to be a “mother sauce!”
Tune in next week when I’ll be featuring more fun with Hollandaise sauce.
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
