Emulsion Sauces and Hollandaise (Heart Attack Sauces)

After reviewing the Grand Sauces for a second time in two days, we set about focusing on the last and most hinky of the Mothers: Hollandaise, and its derivatives, all of which are emulsions. Emulsions are defined as sauces thickened by two liquids which under normal circumstances do not mix. Typically, one of those liquids is a fat and the other is a water-type liquid like wine, stock and, urrr, water. The water-type liquid is the 'divided phase,' which sits in the bowl, and the fat is the 'continuous phase,' which is slowly dripped into the divided phase while whipping.

Before starting with Hollandaise, everyone as individuals made mayonnaise. Rather straight forward, you take an egg yolk, a bit of mustard (two sources of the emulsifier lecithin), a pinch of salt and sugar, and a tablespoon of vinegar; then you mix it up and slowly drip in a cup of oil while whisking. The first few drops are the most important -- if they don't set into an emulsion, all the oil that follows will start pooling and 'breaking' the emulsion. About halfway through the oil, the emulsion becomes stronger and you can get the rest of the oil in pretty quickly. Once it's thick enough, add salt to taste. I've never really eaten mayo, but this stuff was surprisingly unrepulsive.

From there, we broke into teams. Late Kid (LK) was back, and even 5 minutes early today. 2LG had difficulty making her mayonnaise, and was late coming to help set up the mise en place for the four other sauces we were making, but LK and I muddled through.

First we got the Hollandaise out. LK put 9oz of butter on the fire, and I whisked 3 yolks, 1.5 floz of water and a pinch of salt in a metal prep bowl on top of a pot of boiling water and whipped till fluffy. Off the fire with a towel between the bowl and the pot, we slowly emulsified the liquid butter into the egg mix. Once it got to that thick and ribbony stage, the three of us tasted and added salt until it was ready for Chef M (who must have had a belly mightily full of eggy buttery emulsion by the end of the day!).

Next up was the Bearnaise, which is just like the Hollandaise, except instead of whisking yolks with water, you create a reduction of shallots, peppercorns, tarragon, vinegar, and white wine that when almost dry, is hit with water to cool it, strained, then whisked with eggs and then liquid butter. At the end before or during salting, you hit it with some chopped taragon leaves for some visual interest.

As I was directing LK and 2LG to get the mise, I added the white wine and vinegar (8oz/2oz) -- that was the measure for the next sauce. We required equal parts, so our Bearnaise was cock-eyed.

Beurre Blanc started with another reduction (shallots, bayleaf, peppercorn, wine, and vinegar) and after straining, skipped the eggs. Instead, a full pound of cut-up butter was melted into the reduction while whisking. After salting appropriately, this stuff tasted like a warm kitty hugging your lap and purring. The idea of dousing something with warm butter is attractive but kind of gross in practice. However, the practice of dousing something in Beurre Blanc will get you that doused-in-butter ideal.

As the other two made the vinaigrette (which we also did in Lesson 4), I remade the Bearnaise with the proper ratios. The hardest part was running around collecting the mise -- the actual cooking of these emulsion sauces went pretty quickly.

Chef M busted out the veal bacon, showed us how to poach eggs and fry bread in a pan properly (with butter, a little salt, medium temp -- and don't let it scorch), and then showed us how to assemble an Eggs Benedict-like dish with Bearnaise on top. Despite my egg being soft and runny, I didn't have nearly as many problems eating it as the scrambled eggs a few weeks ago.

All these sauces can be found in just about any traditional old-school French restaurant. On Monday, we'll be coming at infused oils and contemporary sauces.

ADDENDA:
It seems the Foie Gras ban in Chicago was recently lifted. I told Chef this morning and his face lit up, said it was the best thing he heard all week, and ran to the phone to gossip with another chef.

A few random thoughts about my uniform: The checkered pants are pretty sensible, as they cover stains and schmutz excellently. As for the whites, they have their own way of accounting for a lot of stains in their design. The apron is a large square that is folded: this allows for 4 opportunities to have a clean apron. The chef's jacket is double-breasted. This is not to disguise the large girth of a chef, but when the front gets dirty, one can unbutton it and put the dirty side on the inside. I can't help but wish all my button-down shirts were double-breasted, they'd last a lot longer.

BREAKFAST: 4:30am, good granola with good milk, .5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Woke up at 4 in anticipation of a 2:30am wakeup on Sunday.

LUNCH #1: 11:30am, Eggs Benedict a la Chef M, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
We pan-fried French bread in butter with a little salt so it was just toasted, poached eggs in hot water with a lil' bit o' vinegar, plopped them on top of our veal bacon, then poured Bearnaise over it. I've never eaten poached eggs due to egg-repulsion, and my egg broke and the yolk ran all over the place. However, it ran into the delicious sauce and it looked way too yummy and unhealthy to not taste....and it tasted good.

LUNCH #2: 2pm, 2 slices of local pizza, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I like the slice joint on my block because usually they have very lightly cheesed slices, where red can poke through like a checkerboard. Today was a thin blanket, and suffered for it. Weird inconsistency, hopefully it won't be like that next time or I'll have to stick to homemade.

PM SNACK: 6pm, bacon/chocolate bar, hunger 4/5
As I'm making dinner, B comes in with a tiny one of these. Slightly smokey and salty, but not nearly bacony enough, with tiny bits spread sparsely through the bar. A bitter dark chocolate would of probably complemented a porky flavor better. Great idea, cute packaging, crappy execution....

DINNER: 6:30pm, Chili de Arizona with Beurre Blanc, kimchi and raw onions over pine-nut brown-rice pilaf, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Used up my c-school friend's chili, and poured some of today's beurre blanc over it. Oh my, it was an excellent combo. The vinnegary butteriness of the sauce was kinda like sour cream, only more complex tasting. I threw pine nuts, porcini, shallots and chives into the long grain brown rice when toasting it in good butter, and it's wide flavor profile kinda competed with the wild flavors of the rest of the dish. Still, if it were a celebrity, gossips would call it a 'hot mess'.