Young people often have quests. Some want fame. Others want world peace. Some strive for power.
My quest was more modest: To make great hollandaise sauce.
When I was in college, I worked for what may have been the worst Italian restaurant in the area. Maybe the whole state — or even beyond.
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That’s a tall claim, because there are a lot of really lousy Italian joints out there. This was particularly bad.
The “signature” alfredo sauce, just like Mama used to make? It came in a large, commercial-sized tinfoil pan from Stouffer’s.
Likewise, chef’s secret lasagna recipe? The chef’s secret was that it came frozen at the start of the week. We defrosted it, slipped portions into boat-style dishes and wrapped them up.
Among our most popular items were the crab legs. Frozen. From Alaska.
A meal at this place was basically an overpriced trip to the frozen food aisle.
The chef did make a petty decent fresh meatball, but anyone who has done any cooking knows those are easy.
Our hollandaise sauce, which showed up on several dishes, was made using a big tub of melted margarine that we kept on the back of the flat grill all day. We warmed the egg yolks in a bowl held over the neighboring fryer.
I didn’t know anything about hollandaise. My mother and grandmothers were good cooks, but distinctly of an un-fancy, mid-century Southern variety, so sauces were pretty much limited to gravies.
One evening, the head waiter came back to the kitchen and said “Who made the hollandaise sauce?”
I raised my hand proudly, ready to be celebrated for my culinary skill.
“Customer says to tell you it’s the worst hollandaise he’s ever had,” he said, pointing at me jauntily before striding back to the dining room.
It was one of my more deflating professional moments.
I began to look into it and found that real hollandaise is a rich, tart sauce made by whipping egg yolks into a frothy, custardy texture then whipping in clarified butter. It’s flavored with lemon juice, salt, and paprika or cayenne to give it a little kick.
In other words, it was almost completely unlike the oily slop we cooked up over the fryer.
I decided to learn and I settled on a recipe from a marvelous old-school Alsatian restaurant that is a favorite in the D.C. area, Chez Francois. Five egg yolks, a pound of butter clarified, juice of one lemon.
It sounds easy enough, but it actually isn’t. The eggs need to be whipped by hand, using a whisk in a figure-8 pattern, in a double boiler over just the right low heat.
Do it too hot or whisk too slowly and you wind up with hard scrambled eggs, or else the sauce will break, with the yolks and the butter resolutely refusing to mix.
Since hollandaise is a special occasion food — rich, fattening, and extravagant in its use of butter — it isn’t something I made very often. It took a number of years to get it right.
Before beginning the sauce, I’d tense up like an athlete facing a big competition. While whisking the eggs and trying to control the heat, I’d sweat and fume, my wife standing by for moral support and to wipe the sweat from my brow when need be.
It was not unheard of for me to burst into tears if the eggs scrambled or the sauce broke.
After a couple of years, I began to get it right consistently, perfecting the figure-8 motion, and learning to hold the side of the double boiler with a mitt so I could finely control the heat being transmitted to the yolks.
Today, I make it a couple of times a year and my quest is complete. The sauce works perfectly almost every time, a lovely, glossy yellow with just right the combination of salt and sour from the lemon juice. Often as not, I add a reduction of vinegar and tarragon that transforms hollandaise into its savory cousin, bearnaise sauce, which is unbeatable with a good steak (and French fries).
The restaurant where I worked many years ago is (mercifully) gone now. In fact, the shabby old hotel where it was located has long-since been demolished.
But every time I approach the double boiler, whisk in hand, ready to bend the egg yolks to my will, I am grateful for having worked at one of the country’s worst Italian restaurants.
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You can reach Sean Scully at 256-2246 or sscully@napanews.com.
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The quest for the perfect sauce - Napa Valley Register
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