[Sca-cooks] Hollandaise, was Bearnaise Sauce

[Gorgeous Muiredach]

At 04:59 PM 7/17/2002, you wrote:
>Also sprach Christine Seelye-King:
>>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!'

Interestingly enough, when I was an apprentice in a private club in
Montreal, I encountered my version of Sherman, and his name was Pedro, but
we called in Ped (pronounce "paid")...  He would keep on saying "Depeche
toi, mais va lentement".  (Hurry up, but take it slow)...  (as an
interesting somewhat funny aside, we would get the butter back from the
tables and put it in a bowl, and use that for cooking (not entirely
hygienic though).  One day I saw Ped walk by, and I bent over the bowl,
sniffed it, made a show of looking perplexed.  As he arrived, I dipped two
fingers in the bowl and lifted a good chunk of very soft butter.  Presented
that to him asking "Ped, you think it's rancid?  I can't smell".  He takes
my hand and brings it right under his nose, at which point I just moved the
hand out and shoved the butter up his nose...  It was very satisfying,
despite being put on lobster cleaning duties for the following three weeks!!!)

You indeed can learn a lot by watching folks, especially not doing
something one way.

At that private club, we were cooking solely out of Escoffier and
"repertoire de la cuisine".  Period.  The chef was in his late 100's (well,
perhaps more like 70's).  We'd cook bechamel for a couple days on the back
burner.  I was in charge of making the hollandaise.  And I would make a
bunch every day.  To the point of being able to control it without having
to use double boiler or anything, I just hold the bowl over the open flame
and control it that way...  Fun.

Interestingly enough, I'll have hollandaise break on me only about once a
year, but if it breaks, I know that there's nothing *I* can do to save
it.  I can save other folk's sauce, but not my own if it breaks when I
start it.  I also know that if I break it, it's pointless to try fresh
(perhaps it's superstition, but heck!)...

Fun stuff.

Arteries don't think so though, especially when you dip french fries in the
hollandaise!!!

>That's a common restaurant expedient, but technically, Hollandaise is
>not a mother sauce for Bearnaise, one being, generally, lemon-based,
>and the other, vinegar-based.

Always bug me when I see references to using a vinegar reduction for
hollandaise..  But then, I'm stuck up that way (Finn, shaddup!)

Cheerios

Gorgeous Muiredach the Odd
Shire of Forth Castle
Meridies
mka
Nicolas Steenhout
"You must deal with me as I think of myself" J. Hockenberry