Easy Hollandaise Sauce

I’ve never made Hollandaise Sauce before, and to be truthful, I’m not sure how much I even like the sauce. Since I thought it would pair well with leftover Asparagus-Spinach Pancakes, I thought I would give it a shot. I’ll definitely try it again, but next time I would follow the recipe more closely!

ingredients.

4 egg yolks
1 T. lemon juice
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 stick salted butter

directions.

Melt the butter slowly in a small pot. Do not boil!
Add the egg yolks, lemon juice, salt and cayenne into a blender. Blend the egg yolk mixture at a medium – until it lightens in color, about 20-30 seconds.
Once the yolks have lightened in color, turn the blender down to its lowest setting and drizzle in the melted butter slowly, while the blender is going. Continue to blend for another couple of seconds after the butter has been incorporated into the egg yolk mixture.
Add a little lemon juice or salt to taste.

Store until needed in a warm spot (like on or next to the stove top). Use within an hour.

Makes about 1 cup of sauce, good for about 6-8 servings.

We didn’t have any lemon juice in the house, which posed to be a huge a problem considering lemon juice is one of the main (only) ingredients. I figured I could use vinegar in its stead, and read somewhere on-line that you can do so.

Perhaps you shouldn’t listen to everything you read on-line. I reduced the ingredients by half because I didn’t have enough eggs to make a full serving, and, quite frankly, I didn’t need a full serving. On top of that, I wasn’t sure how good it would taste substituting white wine vinegar for lemon juice.

I liked the relative ease of the recipe. It took about five minutes to make. However, I could strongly taste vinegar (and I hate the taste and smell of vinegar) so I wouldn’t recommend using vinegar in lemon juice’s stead. Though perhaps if you try reducing the vinegar by boiling it (as recommended on-line — though how do you reduce one tablespoon of vinegar?), it would turn out better.

Recipe rating:  (when using white wine vinegar!)