However, we prepared it classicly, which means boiled, with boiled potatoes and ham and of course Sauce Hollandaise!

I used Michel Roux’ recipe, which calls for

4 yolks (somehow I only used three, don’t know why)
4 tbs of water
1 tbs of white wine vinegar
5 gr of white pepper corns
250 gr of butter
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt to taste

and against all my expectations it was really quite easy.

You make an infusion of the water, the vinegar and the pepper, reduce this by a third, let it cool and scoop out the pepper. While this cools, clarify the butter (melt it, scoop off the stuff on top and discard, save the yellow part in the middle and discard the stuff on the bottom).

Beat the yolks into the cooled infusion. Very gently, while beating heat the mixture, but not higher than 65°C until it’s nice and thick. Switch off the gas or take off the stove. Add the butter first by drops then in a thin stream, all the while still beating until it is incorporated. Add the lemon juice, season with salt.

By this point my sauce was quite thick, a little thinner than mayonaise and only lukewarm, so I heated it a tiny little bit. With the aspargus it was lovely! Silky smooth, fresh and buttery.

So my guess is, the splitting is a temperature thing. Many of my cookbooks recommend working in an ice cube, if the sauce splits. So when you heat slowly, and take it off the heat, when you have a nice and firm mixture, there should be no trouble at all. However, the sauce is not steaming hot, so the food it is poured over should be!

Next time I’ll try it as Sauce Béarnaise with a nice steak and salad.

By the way, semolina is a kind of flour made from a particular part of the wheat grain, not corn.

Keep it up!

I learnt an amazing shortcut for mayonnaise/ hollandaise from a french chef. Put your eggs on a plate. Stir them with a fork. Then add some of the oil, stir it in fully to the eggs. Once the oil is stirred in you can liberally add more oil and stir with the fork and it won’t matter. This should take you 3 minutes to do. Not sure why this method is not better known.

I just love your podcast and hope that you put out another episode soon. I too, hope you can podcast more often. You are both entertaining and informative. I have lived in Germany and of course the pretzel’s there are terrific. That’s the next recipe of yours that I’m going to try. Best of luck…. pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee more podcasts :).. Oh, yes.. I wanted to say that your stories about your travels add so much to the podcast and I’d love to hear more. I live in Canada at the moment and I’m moving to Belgium this summer. Can you imagine we had a ton of snow yesterday?? Take care

Helen

thanks for all the good times

they are informative in such a way that it teaches cooking idiots like me how to cook in a way that i get to feel what it feels like to really be there. as if i’m the one cooking.

they are also very entertaining because of their uniqueness. unlike those cooking shows i usually see on tv, you videos provide me a glimpse of what cooking is really like. they taught me that cooking is never easy and the results cannot be perfect all the time.

thank you guys!

English Muffins (Makes 12)

450 g. Bread Flour (3 1/4 C)
2 tsp Yeast
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon natural dough improver (I skipped this part)
1 teaspoon sugar
350 mL warm water (About 1.6 C)

Similar techniques as the video, although I had to knead using a spoon.

Leslie Kenton has a lovely short-cut recipe for Hollandaise which is very similar to Mayonnaise. You basically put everything but the butter in a blender. Wiz it all, and then, while still blending, add the hot melted butter in a thin stream. If you were worried the eggs needed further heating, you could then add this easy emulsion to a double boiler and whisk some more.

Also, I think Delia Smith has the best method for poaching eggs. She does it in a shallow pan on a low simmer with no vinegar and very fresh eggs.

Love your show guys, Cheers.

A big favourite here….we however opt for bacon…sorry to be boring!

A little dill in hollandaise is also accepted in our house.

Cheers from Willsmere.

What you need:
Couple of eggs (or more as required) heaps of melted butter - about 100g or the half cup you used (pot/microwave to melt).

Method:
Put eggs in small blender, or bowl with whisk. Start beating them while *slowly* adding the melted butter. Then before you get too carried away with adding butter, add some lime or lemon juice.

I makes a really rich sauce but the citrus cuts though it nicely.

I like my eggs benny with crispy bacon, never tried salmon though!