Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce:

The preparation of most hot butter sauces has as its object the relatively permanent and smooth blending together of ingredients. The grand-daddy of these sauces is Hollandaise. Here is the classic.

3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon cream
1 cup (1/2 pound) melted butter, cooled to room temperature
1 tablespoon lemon juice or white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash of cayenne pepper

Use a small, thick ceramic bowl set in a heavy-bottomed pan, or a heavyweight double boiler. Off the heat, put the egg yolks and cream in the bowl or upper section of the double boiler and stir with a wire whisk until well-blended — the mixture should never be beaten but stirred, evenly, vigorously and continually. Place the container over hot water (if you are setting the bowl in water, there should be about 1 1/2 inches of water in the pan; in a double boiler, the water should not touch the top section). Stirring eggs continuously, bring the water slowly to a simmer. Do not let it boil. Stir, incorporating the entire mixture so there is no film at the bottom. When the eggs have thickened to consistancy of very heavy cream, begin to add the cooled melted butter with one hand, stirring vigorously with the other. Pour extremely slowly so that each addition is blended into the egg mixture before more is added. When all the butter has been added, add the lemon juice or vinegar a drop at a time and immediately remove from heat. Add salt and a mere dash of cayenne.

Note:
If you proceed with care your Hollandaise should not curdle. If it does, however, don't despair. Finish adding the butter as best you can. Remove sauce to a small bowl, clean the pot and put a fresh egg yolk in it. Start over again, using the curdled sauce as if it were the butter.

Makes 2 cups, or enough for a broiled unseasoned steak serving 4 to 6.

Sauce: A thick liquid that serves the French in place of a state religion.

Sauce makes the food less dry. The best medium for sauce is mostly simple energy-rich food. Like falafel, spaghetti, potatoes or rice. But together with sauces there are so many combinations to try that these few edibles can keep you excited for years.

Frank met Vidalia on the Lost Highway. He
spied her, short and squat, by the side of
the road, at just about the point where he'd
met a guy who called himself Robert Coover years before.

Frank hadn't been sure about that Robert Coover.

In any case, he plucked Vidalia from her roadside indignity and tucked her into the inside pocket of his extra special creamsicle coat, thinking
she would make a good snack.

»Eat me!« cried Vidalia.

»Quiet, you saucy lass!« shrieked Frank, somewhat
archaically, as he picked up the pace down the Lost Highway.

A sauce code is more usually described as a recipe. A recipe for disaster, when making a white sauce, is to burn the roux on the bottom of the pan before you really get going. It is impossible to rescue the sauce after that.