[Sca-cooks] FW: Hollandaise, was Bearnaise Sauce

[Christine Seelye-King]

Trying this again, as the message got left off the first time. ?
Christianna

-----Original Message-----
From: Christine Seelye-King [mailto:kingstaste at mindspring.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 4:12 PM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Hollandaise, was Bearnaise Sauce


One of the things I learned while an apprentice chef back in the '80's, was
that everyone had something to teach, even if it was the way NOT to do
something.  I worked with this large black man named Sherman, who seemed to
have just stepped out of a Fat Albert cartoon.  He was forever goading me
and others to 'Hustle Baby, Hustle!'  He did teach me a great recipe for
fried chicken (no, I'm not going to post that), but he also showed me what I
consider the absolute worst way to make (what we will loosely call
hollandaise for the sake of this discussion) 'hollandaise'.  He started with
a blender, chicken stock, Supreme (butter flavored cooking grease in a can),
and whole eggs.  He blended this all together until it was homogenized, and
viola, a yellow sauce to be served to unsuspecting guests.  (Note: I have
never made it this way, I just watched in horror.  MY hollandaise is the
best [apologies to those who feel similarly about theirs] and will hold up
for several hours, what we called "All Day Hollandaise" in the restuarant.)
But, as I say, I did learn how to absolutely NOT make this sauce.
By the way, I haven't read all of this thread, but our bernaise was always
made from hollandaise, with the addition of taragon infused vinegar after
the mother sauce was completed.  There are lots of other derivations, my
least favorite being the one with mint added (blech), especially when I saw
folks adding mint JELLY instead of fresh mint or vinegar with mint infused
in it.  REALLY BLECH!  Always wanted to try the one with blood oranges
added, but had not really even seen a blood orange until the last couple of
years.  Maybe I'll have to make a batch of hollandaise (oh, bother ;) and
try it just to see what it's like.  (Wish I could remember all the names for
the various derivations, I guess I'll have to pull out Escoffier.)
Then, there's the story about how not to apply hollandaise that's been made
with a dash of tobasco to any sensitive body parts, but that's for another
story time!
Christianna