Hollandaise Sauce – Easy Microwave Recipe - 1840 Farm (2024)

FAQs

Who made the first hollandaise sauce? ›

La Varenne is credited with bringing sauces out of the Middle Ages with his publication and may well have invented hollandaise sauce. A more recent name for it is sauce Isigny, named after Isigny-sur-Mer, which is famous for its butter. Isigny sauce is found in recipe books starting in the 19th century.

First make the hollandaise sauce. Using a large balloon whisk, beat the egg yolks with a squeeze of lemon juice and seasoning in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Beat vigorously for about 10 minutes until the mixture thickens.

Storage: Refrigerate the sauce in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Reheat in the microwave for about 15 seconds.

Hollandaise sauce yields 33 servings of sauce per container

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In a small bowl, whisk together egg yolks, lemon juice, cold water, salt and pepper. Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat. Gradually whisk yolk mixture into butter. Continue whisking over low heat for 8 minutes, or until sauce is thickened.

The most common mistake people make with Hollandaise is adding melted butter that is too hot, or adding too much too soon. When this happens, the emulsion breaks — it becomes thin and grainy. If your butter is too hot, just stop making the Hollandaise for a minute or two to allow the butter to cool.

One common hollandaise mistake is overcooking the egg yolks, and there's no coming back from that. But the most common problem is that the emulsion breaks, and you see streaks of liquid butter instead of a uniformly creamy sauce.

"But there are a lot of ways things can go wrong. If you don't whisk fast enough or pour in your butter too fast it'll turn greasy and broken. Don't cook the eggs enough and it won't thicken properly. If you cook the eggs too much and you'll end up with clumpy, greasy, scrambled eggs.

Hollandaise should not be held for more than 1.5 hours; therefore, make only what you intend to serve and never mix and old batch of sauce with a new one.

Does hollandaise sauce have raw eggs? ›

The classic hollandaise sauce recipe, originating in France, called for raw eggs, straight from the farm. To prevent the risk of foodborne illness, many chefs and cooks nowadays use pasteurized eggs to make hollandaise. The pasteurization process uses very high heat, so any bacteria present will be killed off.

It's what happens next that sets them apart: Hollandaise gets its acidity from lemon juice (sometimes vinegar) and is usually seasoned with salt, white pepper, and cayenne pepper. Béarnaise, meanwhile, builds upon hollandaise with white wine vinegar, shallots, tarragon, and other fresh herbs.

It is regarded as a "child" of hollandaise sauce. The difference is only in the flavoring: béarnaise uses shallot, black pepper, and tarragon, while hollandaise uses white pepper or a pinch of cayenne. The sauce's name derives from the province of Béarn, France.

Although its French name means “from Holland,” hollandaise sauce probably traces its origins to the northern French region of Normandy, where it was first called sauce Isigny, named after the dairy-producing Calvados town of Isigny-sur-Mer.

Despite its name, there is no evidence that eggs benedict are named after Benedict Arnold. There are many anecdotes about its origins, but nothing is official. Some say it is a traitorous dish as it is usually made with English muffins and Canadian bacon.

Popular theory places its origin to a town in Normandy, France called "Isigny-Sur-Mer", known for its high-quality butter. According to history, France couldn't produce its own butter during the First World War and imported it from Holland – which led to it being known as Hollandaise.

Hollandaise is the classic sauce for the American dish Eggs Benedict. It is one of the five mother sauces and is terrific in the dish mentioned, over asparagus, and its brother, Béarnaise sauce, is great on steak.