So last night I decided to make dinner like it was spring. I bought asparagus and a piece of sole (which Julia Child says is really some sort of haddock or flounder when it’s found in North America (can’t remember which kind she said and have no idea if this is still true – I suspect it is) and some of that frankencorn from Loblaws that’s like the strawberries and tastes sweeter than is naturally possible for corn at this time of year to taste. I also determined to make Julia Child’s hollandaise sauce which I’ve been craving since reading As Always, Julia. I broke out The Art of French Cooking and considered the part where Julia told me that I needed to master the stove top recipe before trying the much easier blender version. She tells me I need to understand the nature of egg yolks and I suspect she’s right. I really had every intention of following through with the stove top version in all of its ridiculous buttery glory…but then, just to check amounts in a modern recipe book I peeked into Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and he told me that doing anything other than making it in the blender was silly and so I caved. Not only did I make the blender version but I used Bittman’s recipe instead of Julia’s.
I can’t say I feel like a bad person. I’m not sure I totally understand the congealing properties of egg yolk whipped with fat, but I do know that in my food processor the same process makes a ton of really nice mayonnaise. What does make me feel like a bad person is the discovery that corn slathered with hollandaise sauce is really, really yummy. I ate two and a half pieces of corn like that. The hollandaise was also very nice on the asparagus and the “sole”.
So thank you Julia for inspiring me to make the sauce and thank you to mark Bittman for making it really, really easy.
