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Hollandaise Sauce, The Mother Sauce

Hollandaise is a comforting sauce – the savory sort that can take one look at wilted spinach, prickly artichoke or sullen egg and blanket it with affection.

No wonder it's called the mother sauce. Chefs trained in the French tradition begin with sauces: bechamel, veloute, espagnole and hollandaise, mother of them all.

The magnificence of hollandaise is rendered from humble ingredients: eggs and butter. Yolks, lulled by a warm bath, relax. They are then coaxed, by way of wire whip, to expand their capacity fourfold. In this extenuated state, they are convinced to absorb butter – a trickle at first, then some more. Eventually, a lot.

Hollandaise has a reputation as being difficult, though it simply calls for patience, practice and three hands. Still, it's a forgiving recipe. Any mishap, even separation or curdling, can be remedied by the addition of still more butter, still more eggs. That, or cream.

Perfectly smooth, perfectly lovely hollandaise is a brief condition – about half an hour.

But it can get a lot done. Perhaps someone in your household will see fit to construct a tower of toasted English muffin, smoked salmon and poached egg, surmounted by hollandaise. And to serve it to you in bed, where you recline, oblivious to the laundry troubles that will soon be yours.

Hollandaise Sauce

Makes about 1 cup sauce

• 9 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1-1/2 tablespoons cold water
• Whipping cream, optional
• 1 to 3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, strained
• Dash of hot red pepper sauce, optional
• Salt and ground white pepper

Cut butter into chunks. Melt in a small heavy saucepan over low heat, undisturbed. Let simmer 10 minutes. Pour through a cheesecloth-lined strainer into a glass measuring cup and discard solids.

Place egg yolks in top of a double boiler or a large stainless-steel bowl, off the heat. Add the cold water. Whisk until light and frothy, about 2 minutes. Set on a pan or bowl over (not in) about 2 inches of barely simmering water and continue to whisk until the eggs are thickened, 2 to 4 minutes, being careful not to let the eggs scramble.

Remove from heat, set bowl on a tea towel and whisk to cool slightly. Then, whisking constantly, very slowly add the warm clarified butter. This procedure requires one hand to steady the bowl, one to whisk and one to pour.

If at any point the sauce threatens to separate, whisk in a couple tablespoons of cold cream or water. If it does separate, whisk 1 new yolk in a clean bowl, then slowly whisk into the broken sauce, which should re-emulsify.

Whisk in lemon juice, pepper sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Hollandaise can hold for a mere 30 minutes in a bowl over warm water.

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