Hollandaise
Up first is a sauce called Hollands. It’s a butter sauce that you don’t see home cooks making very often because the tread French beastro technique for making it is pretty intimidating. But the process that I’m going to show you is a modern way of making it that’s much easier, less complicated, and faster. And I think the results taste better. To make it, I’m going to start with 140 g of butter, which is just under a stick and a half. And I’m going to melt it over gentle heat. You definitely don’t want to get it sizzling and bubbling because it’ll be too hot and it’ll cook the yolks in the sauce.Once I got my butter heated about 175 to 180, I’m going to set that off to the side. Then grab my blender and into it add three large egg yolks, 10 gram of white balsamic vinegar. By the way, most traditional Hollands recipes use lemon juice for acidity, but I don’t because its sharpness cuts a little bit too hard in emulsified sauces in my opinion. And if you don’t have white balsamic, you can use champagne vinegar or even white distilled. Behind the vinegar, I’ll add in 3 g of salt.
Then a tiny little pinch of cayenne pepper. Nothing crazy here, maybe like a 16th of a teaspoon. Then I’ll add in five grams of woreser and five grams of don mustard. Next, I’m just going to spin these together until everything is combined. Then I’m going to take my melted butter and put it into something that I can give a spout form factor to just to make it easier to pour. Then I’m going to stream the butter in while the blender is moving. And after about 10 seconds of streaming, all the butter is emulsified with the eggs.
Now I’m going to grab 25 to 30 g of water. Add that in to thin things out. Then I’m going to turn this up and use the friction of the blender blades to cook the eggs in the sauce to thicken it up a little bit and to give it a little bit more body. All right. And once the blender is feeling warm to the touch on the side here, I’m just going to come back and check the temperature. I’m looking for about 130F.
And this is at 132 or so. At this point, the sauce is looking really, really good. But it’s a touch thick, and it always will be when you make it in a blender because the blades are really, really good, almost too good at emulsifying fat into egg yolks. At this point, it’s basically butter mayonnaise, more or less, and it’s excellent. then it would be great for dipping stuff into or serving on top of roasty vegetables like asparagus.
But if you’re going to put it on top of eggs benedict or serve it with a steak, you’re going to need to thin it out a little bit. So to get the viscosity perfect from here, I’m going to move this Holland’s from my blender jar over into a saucepan. This is the same pan that I used to melt the butter earlier, just in case you wanted to save a dish. And then I’m going to add in maybe 20 g of water. And I’ve got this saucepan over my lowest heat. I want to keep the sauce in the temperature range of about 130 to 140F.
If it’s any hotter than that, you run the risk of curdling the eggs and making the sauce lumpy. Oh my god, that looks so good. That looks so good. M. The little bit of westerer brings this umami saltiness. It’s a little bit of an X factor. The don is there. It’s a brings a sharpness and then it’s just this round, buttery, beautiful, luxurious, silky sauce that’s so interesting. And the white balsamic, you guys, that’s kind of the unsung hero of this entire thing. It brings this very bright fruity flavor that I just love.
White balsamic is a very underrated acidifier. It’s just a delicious sauce. The most classic way to serve Hollands is on top of a perfectly poached egg and an eggs benedict. The sauce here is warm but not heavy. It brings a touch of acidity to balance out all of that fat and the silky texture clings to everything in a way that unifies all the components into one beautiful bite.
Hollands is also great on poached or grilled vegetables and basically any type of panroasted or grilled protein like steak, pork chops, or fish. This blender method just totally changes this sauce from something that’s finicky and can only be made in a restaurant to something that’s truly accessible for the home cook.
Brown Butter Caper Sauce (Meunière)
Up next is a brown butter caper sauce that French chefs call sauce munier. And just like for the holidays, I’ve got a couple of tricks built into this recipe that level up the laborious beastro version and make the process a little bit nicer and a little bit easier for the home cook. So sauce munier is technically a pan sauce. So that means that this recipe starts with the thing that we need to cook in the pan before we make the sauce. For that, I’ve got two 6 pieces of skinless halibit here.Now sauce monier is traditionally served with dover soul, which is a type of flatfish, just like halibit. And if you don’t know what flat fishes are, Google it. You’re going to be like, “What the hell? Why are the eyeballs on the top and the side? This doesn’t make any sense evolutionarily. It’s a horrifying fish to look at, but it’s beautifully flavored and it has a really nice flaky texture.” Now, I’m using hell over the original soul just because soul is a little bit harder to find in St. Louis and it’s a smaller version of a flatfish, which means that it’s going to be a little bit harder to butcher and the likelihood of me finding a high quality version of that is pretty low.
That being said, sauce monier is really good with pretty much any fish. You can use salmon, scallops, trout, or halibit. Now, to prep these halibit, I’m just going to season both sides liberally with salt. Bonus points if you season this salt 10 or 15 minutes ahead of time. That’s going to help the fish hold on to more moisture during cooking, and it’s going to make it a little bit more firmer, which is going to give it a more beautiful texture. Once salted up, I’m going to take these pieces of halibit and gently dredge them in some all-purpose flour.
This flour is going to develop a thin crust on the outside of the fish that’s going to brown super evenly and help the butter sauce cling to the surface. The flour also prevents sticking in the pan and creates a delicate barrier that keeps the fish super moist while cooking. Once the fish are all dusted up with flour, I’m going to drop a 10-in stainless steel pan over medium-high heat. You could also definitely use a non-stick pan for this if that’s what you’ve got and that’s what you prefer.
But the thing that I don’t like about it for this recipe is that it’s very difficult to determine how brown the butter is getting. So, I like stainless. Also, stainless is very non-stick if you know what you’re doing. Once the pan’s hot, I’m going to add a generous ziggy of olive oil. The pan’s too hot. Oh, no. That’s not what you want to do is get the pan rolling over high heat. Then go mess around with the cameras for 5 to 7 minutes and come back and it’ll be good and nuclear hot at that point.
Once my pan’s hot, I’m going to add in a generous squiggle of olive oil. Then I’m going to drop in my halibit pieces with the flat side facing down. As soon as the fish is in the pan, I’m going to come back and press them down with my spatula for the first 15 to 20 seconds just to make sure that they’re making really even contact with the hot surface. In the first few seconds of cooking, there’s a lot of steam being created which can create little bubbles of vapor in between the hot surface and the fish and that can lead to splotchiness. So, pressing it just ensures a really nice golden brown crust.
At this point, it’s been about 3 minutes over medium high and I’m just going to come back and check the fish. And that’s looking super crispy and golden brown. So now I’m going to turn the heat down all the way to low and then I’m going to flip this over and let it kind of coast on the backside for only about 30 seconds or so. For pretty much all fish, I like to cook it mainly on one side with high heat and then just kiss it on the back with gentle heat. This gives me the maximum amount of crispiness on the seared side and it doesn’t bring super aggressive heat to the backside so it maintains this really juicy, delicate flesh throughout.
And after a quick 30 to 45 second kiss over low heat on the backside, these are feeling good. So, I’m just going to move them off to the side and let those rest for 3 to four minutes while we make this very quick, easy to make pan sauce. Okay, the fish is cooked and now I’ve got my pan heated back up over medium heat. And I want to stress medium here. If it’s low, medium, the butter isn’t going to get browned enough. And if it’s high, medium, or high, the butter is going to brown too fast and it’s going to caramelize the shallots and overcook the parsley and it’s not going to be good.
So once I’ve got the vibe of medium here, I’m going to add in one whole stick of butter or 115 g worth and swirl that around. It should start to foam right away. That’s how you know you’re in a good spot. Okay. I’m also going to whisk in 3 g of nonfat dried milk powder. Why am I doing that? Well, in my opinion, the natural milk solid content of butter is not high enough and you end up with too much fat. not enough brown flavor. Adding in that dried milk product is going to give us 3x the amount of tasty brown solids and it’s going to make a sauce that is much more flavorful.
Okay, once that’s stirred in, we’re already starting to toast up. So, I’m going to add in 25 g of capers. Give those a quick sizzle and let those fry up until they’re getting a little bit crispy. At this point, we’ve got color that I think a lot of people would be satisfied with, but there’s a lot of flavor left on the table if we take it just a little bit further. Okay, once the capers are sizzled off, I’m going to add in 20 gram of very finely minced shallots and give those a fry for 15 to 20 seconds.
The fat in this pan is quite hot at this point, though, and we don’t want to caramelize the shallots. So, a quick little trick from restaurants is to add in a splash of water at this point. That’s going to create steam, which is going to help soften those very finely minced shallots really quickly. And it’s also going to help delaze all of the milk solids that have gotten stuck to the edges of the pan. Look how brown that is at this point. That’s so beautiful. There’s honestly like three times the amount of brown butter solids in here as there would be with just straight up butter.
Okay, that looks insanely good. It’s like perfectly toasted. It’s got a nice dark brown color. So, from here, I’m going to kill the heat. Then, grab a lemon and squeeze in about 10 to 15 grams. And that should just about stop the browning process. There we go. I’m just going to whisk that in now. Then, I’m going to take this pan off the heat for I don’t know about a minute or so. In my testing, adding the parsley directly to the pan at this point kind of bloomed it out and a lot of the essential oils from the parsley turned the butter green, which isn’t very good.
I want to have a lot of parsley. I want to have a lot of parsley flavor, but I don’t want the butter to look weird. So, letting it cool down for about a minute or so gets the temperature into a spot where the parsley isn’t going to get cooked and it’s not going to make the butter green. Okay, so now I’m going to add in the parsley, which is about 5 g worth. And then I’ll just whisk that in. Oh man, that looks so good. That looks divine. Now, to serve this, I’m just going to put a liberal amount all over my nice warm piece of halibit. And a little bit extra here. Oh my gosh.
It just is so perfect. For me, this is the absolute ideal of munir sauce. It’s got so much brown stuff in it. I’m so hyped. I’m I’m hyped, guys. Man, it’s so pleasurable. Look, I love this dish obviously because it’s fast and tastes great, but also because the process of cooking it is so fun and engaging. If you’re the type of person that gets down on that, then this recipe is going to be a hoot for you.
White Wine Butter Sauce
Up next is a classic white wine sauce that’s super versatile and universally beloved by all people. Now, to make this thing, I’m going to grab my favorite saucemaking pot and drop it down over medium heat. I’m using a 3-quart saucier, which is appropriately named because it’s really good for making sauces. It has these nice sloped sides, which makes whisking butter in a total breeze. and it has a lot of surface area and it’s really wide so it evaporates things really quickly.Way better than a narrow saucepan. Once my saucier is hot, I’m going to add a nice squiggle of olive oil. Then 100 g of shallots and 50 g of minced garlic. And then a little pinch of salt. Then I’ll jump in, give these a quick stir, and I’ll sweat them for about 5 to 6 minutes until they’re softened and a bit translucent. Also, since I’m cooking garlic, now is a good opportunity to mention that the garlic press that I designed is going to be coming out in the next two months or so.
Also, if things are looking a little bit hot in here and there’s some browning going around the edges, this is a good opportunity to add a splash of water to cool down the pan. This will create some steam, which will help soften the aromatics faster and it’ll also help you delaze those little brown bits so they don’t turn into caramelization.
And after about 5 to 6 minutes of slowly, gently sweating these aromatics. They’re translucent and mostly softened. From here, I’m going to add in 250 gram of dry white wine. By the way, my wine preference for this is Bodabox Chardonnay or Pog Grigio. In my opinion, there’s just no need to spend real money on cooking wine. And I’m not saying this to flex on anybody, but it is a fact that when I worked at Michelin starred restaurants, all of the cooking wine that we used was actually Franzia. So that just illuminates the fact that you can make really amazing food with wine that costs less than a dollar per glass.
Okay, now I’m going to bring the wine up to a spirited simmer and then reduce it until what’s called a seac, which is just a fancy way of saying in French until dry. And that’ll take about 2 to 3 minutes or so. 2 minutes later, when I come back, we have reached these sack stage. And I know that because when I pass my spatula through, it leaves a long trail like this. And it’s starting to get kind of loud. Starting to sizzle a little bit. That’s a good way of knowing when you’re out. Next, I’m going to add in 125 g of store-bought chicken stock and bring this back up to a simmer. Also, if you’re making this sauce specifically for seafood, instead of using the chicken stock, you could sub in some clam juice.
About a minute later, I’m back to that point where we’re passing a trail through where I’ll sack again. So, I’m going to lower the heat. Then add in 75 gram of cold cubed butter and then grab a whisk and just agitate constantly. As the butter melts, I’m agitating it with the whisk. And that breaks the fat into butter into these tiny little droplets that can be held in emulsion with the water in the sauce. And when I say emulsion, I’m just talking about getting two things that are unmixable temporarily held together.
I think the word is technically immissible. It sounds like unmixable and it basically means the same thing. And once the butter has been properly and fully emulsified in, the sauce should have this opaque sheen to it. If it’s looking a little bit greasy or shiny in like a clear way, that means that you probably reduced too much water out of the sauce, and you’re going to need to remulsify it. That’s not a big deal. Actually, you can just add in a splash of cold water and a little bit more cold butter and whisk that to bring things together. To finish, I’ll just kill the heat. Then add in half of a zest of one lemon.
Then I’ll add in 15 g of very finely minced parsley. And just whisk that in. Again, off heat because you really don’t want to cook the parsley. Look at that, dude. That is so freaking silky. Oo. Time to give a little taste. M. Man, the shallots are perfectly softened. They’re a little bit sweet. You get this puckery acidity on the back of your tongue from the wine, but it’s perfectly in balance. Since the butter is properly emulsified and melted into this sauce, it has a substantial nature to it, but it’s not heavy.
It’s very silky and it just kind of flows over your palette. It’s very luxurious and very, very delicious. And it only takes like 5 minutes. This sauce is so fast. My three favorite ways to serve this sauce are one, over a chicken breast cutlet that I’ve pounded thin, dredged with flour, and pan seared on both sides for about 2 minutes. Two, a classic piece of salmon that I’ve pan roasted at high temp to get a nice crusty sear. And then number three, shrimp scampy with pasta.
Herby Garlic Compound Butter
Up next is an herby garlic compound butter. This is a low-effort, high impact sauce that makes you look like you really know what you’re doing. And once you taste it and know how to make it, you’re going to find a ton of different ways to use it. To get started, I’m going to grab one lb of very softened butter and add it into my food processor. You want it as soft as you can get before it starts to melt. If the butter is too firm, it’s going to get pushed up onto the sides while you’re trying to spin it, and it’s not going to be able to break down the parsley and all the other stuff that’s going into the sauce, and you’re going to have to scrape it down like 150 times, and it’s going to be really frustrating.Also, if the room temperature of your house is too cold to soften butter to the point where you can push your finger into it like this, I like to put butter by the oven for about 20 minutes on a plate where it’s warm enough to soften, but not cool enough to melt it. And also make sure to spread the butter out into four individual sticks instead of tempering a whole four stick block. Next, I’ll add in 25 grams of parsley. And I’ve picked the leaves off the stems and gotten rid of those because they’re fibrous and pretty bitter. Next, I’ll add in 10 g of chives. 3 to 4 g of fresh thyme leaves. 2 to three grams of fresh rosemary. 10 g of minced garlic or about 2 or three large cloves. Then 20 g of shallots, which I chopped down into chunky pieces so that they just break down much faster.
Then finally, 2 g of coarse crackback black pepper and 5 g of salt. Now the lid goes on and I’m just going to spin this for however long it takes everything to get super smooth. Sometimes that takes 1 minute, sometimes it takes 10 minutes with lots of scrape downs. It kind of just depends on how tempered your butter is. At some point you are going to have to come back and scrape things down just because the butter is going to get pushed up against the sides and you want to make sure that this is getting super well spun. I’m going to give this even a tiny bit more. Actually, for this, I like to lean on the side of more spun than less spun.
If you Google a lot of recipes for herby compound butter, you’ll see pictures of butter that have yellow butter with herb chunk and shallot chunk in it and stuff. And it’s not this unified thing. And that’s going to be way less flavorful. The more you spin this, the more you’re breaking down the essential oils in the parsley and all the herbs, and the smoother the puree you’re getting on the garlic and the shallot.
And that just all around infuses the fat with much more flavor and makes a much more unified eating experience that’s way more delicious. And after about 3 to 5 minutes of spinning, I’ve got super green butter with herbs and shallots and garlic that are fully broken down. Next, I’m going to lay out two long skinny pieces of plastic wrap on top of each other, giving myself something that’s about 18x24, more or less.
Then I’ll take my butter and lay that out into a thin 14 to 16 in line across the bottom. Then to roll this up into what’s called a torchone, I’m going to fold over the plastic wrap and then roll it up almost like it’s cinnamon rolls or something like that or like a baguette. I’m just rolling it out into a thin tube. Now, to bring all this butter into a tidy sort of unified mass in the middle, I’m going to grab each end and kind of pinch it down. And then I’m going to push it forward while rolling it on the cutting board. And every time I push it forward, I’m going to regrip it so that the next push tightens it that much more. And from here, I’m just going to repeat that a few times.
At some point, you’ll probably get a little void like that. That’s not a big deal. That’s pretty inevitable. Just take a cake tester or a fork and give it a couple pops and then keep rolling. The air will get pushed out. Now, this next step is just a little bit unnecessary, but I like to do it just to form things up that much more. I’m going to lay out one more piece of plastic wrap. Put my little torsion in the middle and then roll it up one more time. This just helps you get a full cylinder without any flat spots. just kind of tightens everything up one more time into a really tidy, stable, round package. And that looks great. Looks kind of like a Tootsie Roll.
Looks way better than a Tootsie Roll, actually. Tootsie Rolls suck ass. From here, I’m just going to trim off the excessive plastic wrap to make a little bit of extra room in the fridge. Then, I’m going to throw this in the fridge on a plate to firm up for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight. And at some point in the near future, I’ve got fully set up herby compound butter here. To get this ready to serve, I’m just going to cut off the end and then cut it into a nice, I don’t know, 1/2 inch disc and then just nip that so I can pull off the plastic wrap.
That’s a very pretty and useful piece of flavorful butter. And once I’ve got a couple of pieces deplasticked and sliced up, I’m going to set those aside. Then I’m going to take the rest of this compound butter and just rewrap it with plastic wrap so the cut end isn’t exposed. And then I’m going to throw it in the fridge until the next time I want to use it. That’s kind of the beauty of making a large batch of this is that it lasts for a long time and it’s going to be good anytime you want to use it. Also, if you want to keep it in the freezer for long-term storage, you can throw it in there for up to 3 months before it’ll start tasting like freezer.
Now, my favorite way to serve this is on a lean, well seared piece of meat, like a steak. I’ve got a fillet here, but this would also work for a sirloin hanger, flat iron, or flank steak. And once the steak is cooked, while it’s still ripping hot in the pan, I’m going to slide on a thick pad of the compound butter and then slide it into the oven for about 60 to 90 seconds just to soften it a little bit. And once it’s melted, oh my god, this is just smut.
The steak is swimming in green garlic butter, you guys. There’s no way that this isn’t a 10 out of 10. M. Gosh, dude. Gosh. Overall, this is just a very unique steak experience. It’s fresh. It’s fun. It’s beautiful to look at. And it is very, I don’t know, interesting. It’s just so delicious. This compound butter also works super well on top of seared fish like salmon, halibit, or trout. And if you’re really crazy, try it inside of a baked potato.
Beurre Rouge (Red Butter)
Okay, the last sauce is called Bur Rouge, or red butter, and it punches way above its weight. It’s silky, dark, moody, and full of fruity red wine flavor. Now, to make this sauce into a little saucepan, I’m going to add 25 to 30 g of rough chopped shallot, couple of cloves of garlic. We’ll add in a couple of sprigies of thyme, couple sprigies of rosemary. I’ll add in couple of 10 peppercorns or so. Then, I’m going to add in 150 g of water, and 300 g of ruby port.Port wine, if you’re not familiar, is actually a high alcohol sweet fortified wine. And compared to standard issue red wine, port has a much more intense fruity flavor. Think plum and black cherry. Lastly, I’ll add in one gram of powdered gelatin. And just whisk that in. This is way less than one packet, by the way. And I’m adding the gelatin just to bring some extra body and viscosity to the sauce.
And the gelatin is going to help hold the butter. It’s going to make a sauce that’s much silkier. And once the gelatin’s stirred in, I’m going to bring this up to a spirited simmer and then reduce everything by half while also infusing it with the aromatics and the herbs.
Also, if you’re wondering why I added water into a sauce that’s supposed to be concentrated and flavorful, well, it’s there to add a little bit of extra infusion time. If I cooked all the aromatics and garlic in only 300 gram of port wine, I’d get maybe 3 or 4 minutes to infuse it. Adding that 150 g of water gives me an extra 3 to four, and it makes the whole sauce taste much more interesting. Okay, once the wine is reduced by 50% or so, I’m going to move it over to a strainer and pour it through. And then I’ll come back with a spoon to press the aromatics and get every last bit of port wine pushed through. Then the strained sauce goes back on high heat and I’ll reduce it for about 3 minutes until it’s brought down into a syrupy sticky glaze.
About 10 minutes later, the wine is reduced until it’s nice and syrupy. It’s got these really big bubbles going on. That’s a good indicator that it’s reduced enough and it’s leaving a lazy trail like this. From here, I’ve got two full sticks of butter, and I’m going to add in some little cubes, couple at a time. Then I’ll jump in with my whisk and mount that into the port wine reduction. You want to add in a little bit of butter at a time because it just it makes this more stable, silkier emulsion.
If you added all this in at once and melted it all at once, the sauce would be a little bit greasier because you haven’t melted the tiny little droplets of fat into the water in a really slow, deliberate way. Once that’s whisked in, I’m just going to add in another handful. I’m probably going to whisk this in in three or four different stages. Again, just building up that silky body slowly as I whisk. The last step here is to check for viscosity. I think the best way to do that is to just get some on the back of a spoon or a spatula and pass your finger through it. It should leave a lazy trail like that.
I keep saying lazy trail. What if the trail has a job? Oo man, that’s good sauce. It’s got this stewy fruit flavor in a very distinctive warm spice to it. It’s got this wonderful viscosity that just sort of flows over your tongue. It tastes like red wine but more fun. If you just made the sauce with basic Cabernet, it wouldn’t hit like this. And the butter, guys, like in all these sauces, it’s just fun. Butter tastes good.
Oh, man. The thing about Bur Rouge is that it’s pretty much good with all meats, especially pan roasted steaks like filet minion or New York strip. You also might be thinking that since this is a red wine sauce, it might not work with lighter proteins like salmon or halibit, but it really does. The depth and intensity of flavor here doesn’t translate into a sauce that’s overly heavy. It’s just a wonderful thing to eat, and it’s a reminder that sauce making is an art form, one in which you can participate in right now with very little time and effort. I truly hope you guys try a few of the recipes in this post.