Emulsion – butter with egg yolk (Hollandaise)

Simons take on the Béarnaise/Hollandaise Sauce using an immersion blender.

Created on 2021-10-18

Inspired by How to Make Foolproof Béarnaise Sauce | The Food Lab by James Kenji López-Alt @ Serious Eats' (2021-10-18)

Estimated time needed: At least 6 minutes. At most 10 minutes.

Ingredients

170 g butter salted
22.5 ml vinegar 22.5 ml is approximately 1.5 tablespoon. 1 tablespoon is 15 ml.
2 eggs
0.75 tsp seasoning Optional

Scaling

Percent %
By ingredient

Timeline

Directions

⌛ Active time 1 minutes

  • 2 eggs

Separate egg yolks:

Separate egg yolks from whites, you only need the yolks.

⌛ Active time 1 minutes

Add egg yolks to bowl/container you want to mix in:

The container should ideally snuggly fit your immersion blender to minimize mess and generally make things easier, but in a pinch any tall container like a pot will do the trick.

⌛ Active time 1 minutes

  • 22.5 ml vinegar | 22.5 ml is approximately 1.5 tablespoon. 1 tablespoon is 15 ml.

Add vinegar to bowl/container you want to mix in:

What kind of vinegar you use affects the taste. I've found a mixture of 2 parts white wine vinegar to 1 part lemon juice works well.

⌛ Active time 1 minutes

Mix egg yolks and vinegar:

Using an immersion blender, mix the egg yolks and vinegar.

⌛ Active time 3 minutes

  • 170 g butter | salted

Melt butter:

Because the heat of the butter contributes to the cooking, use it once it's in the 90 - 95 ℃ temperature range. I like to use the standard Norwegian butter unclarified, which is salted (approximately 1.1% salt) and sligtly accidic. Note that the base recipe here calls for 85 g butter per egg yolk, but I've seen other recipes go as high as 115 g butter per yolk, so there should be room for some variance here.

⌛ Active time 2 minutes

Drizzle in butter to egg yolk and vinegar mixture while mixing:

Using an immersion blender, mix the egg yolk and vinegar mixture while slowly pouring in a steady stream of the hot butter. If the container snuggly fits the blender, move it up and down while you mix to ensure a even result.

⌛ Active time 1 minutes

  • 0.75 tsp seasoning | Optional

Optional: Add seasoning:

The sauce works as is, but if you want you can stir in some seasoning to spice it up. Things I've tried that works well are estragon/tarragon, black pepper, ramsons/wild garlic (Allium ursinum). If you use unsalted butter, also add a pinch of salt. I guesstimate that between 0.5 to 1 tsp is a fine amount for the base recipe, this step is mostly added to ease scaling the recipe.