Foolproof Hollandaise Sauce

Though it likely originated in the 17th century, hollandaise sauce was crowned as one of the five "mother sauces" of French cuisine in the early 1900s by Escoffier, a French chef whose writings codified and unified French cuisine. A creamy emulsion of egg yolks, enriched with butter and flavored simply with a bit of lemon juice, hollandaise is a sunny, bright, rich sauce that you’ve probably eaten! If you’ve ever had eggs benedict, you’ve probably had hollandaise. But it’s delicious on many things—try this lightly tart, lusciously rich sauce on poached fish, blanched green veggies (it’s heavenly on asparagus), or homemade eggs florentine.