The Class with Emulsion

Interesting Fact: Hollandaise sauce was originally called Sauce Isigny after a town in Normandy known for its butter. During World War I, butter production came to a halt in France and had to be imported from Holland. The name was changed to hollandaise to indicate the source of the butter and was never changed back.

Oof - this week in the kitchen went from what seemed like chaos to what was actual chaos. In our last lesson in module one before our practical and written exams (TONIGHT!), we handled emulsified sauces. First up to bat we all had to individually make a hollandaise sauce - the process and the finished product are not for the weak of heart. First, make a reduction using black peppercorns and cider vinegar. Add 4 oz. of water to the reduction. Then in a metal bowl take a tablespoon of the reduction, mix with an egg yolk, and then here comes the tricky part take the bowl and place it over a pot of simmering water and whisk the hell out the yolk/reduction mixture until it cooks. But don' t let it cook too much. IMMEDIATELY remove it from the heat and then whisk in slowly 2 1/2 oz of clarified butter. I let my mixture cook too much, my hollandaise had the consistency of mayonnaise. And even though no one else's faired much better, I blame it on thing 1 and thing 2 who flanked me at the stove and kept yapping in my ears like needy bichon frise. It was then back to the groups ( still paired with thing 1 and thing 2) to prepare a bernaise, a lemon beurre blanc, and a compound butter. Chef came up to me as I was finishing the bernaise and asked me if I wanted to re-try making the hollandaise and to double the recipe. She said that I would see how impossible it is to make a hollandaise with one yolk and that with two my sauce would be fine. She was right.

While I was remaking the "perfect marriage of butter and egg", the things squared were left up to their own devices to make the lemon beurre blanc (it burned) and the compound butter (which looked more like sour cream than an herbed soft butter). It was then back to individual work to make a mayonnaise. Here's where I really started to feel bad for our chef, after tasting 13 different hollandaises she then had to hunker down and taste 13 different mayonnaises. Just thinking about it makes me never want to go near the stuff again, I can only imagine what its like to do it.

Thing 2, ever trying to be helpful mise-d me for the mayonnaise (that is he measured out all of my ingredients for me with out my asking), but of course measured an ounce of vinegar instead of a tablespoon. You can only begin to picture the disaster that ensued. **Note to self: NEVER rely on anyone else, especially if you didn't ask them for help**. Round 2 mayonnaise came out, unsurprisingly, a thousand times better.

Thank goodness this week, and my pairing with the things have come to a close. We have a written exam tonight, a practical exam (we each have to make a soup and a mayo) and that's the end of Module One. Monday we begin a new module - Dry and Moist Cooking methods - with a new Chef. Wish me good luck on the exams and please hold those good thoughts straight into mod2 as I hear our new chef is tough.