the businesswoman's kitchen

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Voilà – our dinner!

We had magnificent green asparagus w/ fresh potatoes & Italian ham … topped w/ some dollops of home-made hollandaise sauce.

Of course it isn’t difficult nor stressful to prepare asparagus & potatoes as well as to arrange some boiled ham on a plate. The crucial challenge is the hollandaise sauce.

For the record:
There is always the option to buy a ready-to-use hollandaise sauce. I admit that I just do it – there are rather fine hollandaise sauce versions in my trusted food store. However, …

Hollandaise sauce is always associated w/ having special skills to prepare such a difficult sauce. It might go wrong. It might clot. You’ll need a bain-marie … So I never was very fond of trying my luck. However, … there is a foolproof way of preparation now: Have a look at the result!

To be honest the foolproof method isn’t so new – I used it beforehand to make my home-made mayonnaise & my home-made remoulade. Coming from this experience I thought about how to do hollandaise sauce. I surfed the food blog universe & found an approach at Emmi kocht einfach reassuring me of my idea.

So let’s start dinner preparation now!

My better half & I love asparagus – to be accurate: green asparagus. We think that green asparagus has got a lot more of flavor than the white one … & better texture.

Green asparagus appears in the market in April. You don’t need to peel it. Just break off the lower part. You’ll notice at once that there is some sort of predetermined breaking point to allow you to get rid of the woody part. Then clean it, put it in a pot & cook it for about 5-10 min. Check if the asparagus is fine – it depends how soft you’ll like it.

Storage?
Fresh asparagus my be stored in the fridge for 1-2 days tightly wrapped in humid tea towels or in an appropriate container. Cooked asparagus – if it happens that there are leftovers – may also be stored in the fridge to be used for an asparagus omelette next morning for breakfast.

At the same time – or better some minutes before – start w/ the potatoes. I just quartered them & cooked them in salty water for 10-20 min. It depends on the size of the potatoes. No peeling of the potatoes necessary.

We had some fine Italian boiled ham to go w/ our asparagus. Another option: we also like cured ham.

… then there is hollandaise sauce to be prepared just before dinner.

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What do we need?

• butter
• egg yolks
• French mustard
• Greek yoghurt
• sugar
• juice of a lime (or a lemon).

I tried the hollandaise sauce w/ lime juice as well as w/ lemon juice. Both work fine – although for my approach I only use a rather small amount of juice.

For the finish you may add some white wine vinegar … & of course salt & pepper to taste. If you like the sauce a little more runny just add some drops of water.

So: what did I do?

I put the egg yolks, the yoghurt, the mustard, the sugar & the juice in a small high container. Just rely on the one which comes w/ your handheld blender. I had the blender ready for use.

I let the butter melt, coming to a boil & cooked it for some seconds. When the pot is no longer on the hot plate the butter will continue cooking.

W/ the handheld blender I blended all the ingredients until smooth. Then I poured in the hot butter – slowly – while the blender was still active. Within seconds you’ll get a fine smooth sauce. Then: salt & pepper to taste & some drops of white wine vinegar.

Ready.

Enjoy!

(information on equipment)