Today we will learn one of the basic sauces – a hollandaise. When Edita first made the sauce, it did not go very well, some attempts ended up like scrambled eggs, which can happen quite easily without proper recipe. I have a great one for you, so excuses aside and get to the stove!
For 2 portions
1 baby chicken
3 pcs green asparagus
5 pcs cherry tomatoes
1 spring onion
little plain flour
100 ml white wine
100 ml white wine vinegar
250 g butter
little lemon juice
1 white onion
3 eggs
1 bay leave
10 g mint
salt and pepper
First, we prepare the chicken. Normally, I just season it. But this time I used a different technique – I put it in a salt solution. It is quite simple, it is a 6% salt solution (per liter of water we need 60 g of salt). In total just make about 2 litres. To make this a bit faster, boil salt only in half of the amount and then pour in the remaining water. Let the solution cool down and when it is cold, put the chicken in. Leave it there for 3 hours. The perfect way to ensure moist and succulent chicken is to put it into a brine!
After 3 hours take the chicken out and dry it with towels. Separate the legs and cut off the rear part of the chicken so it remains “on the crown”, or bone. Coat the legs in flour and fry along with the rest of the chicken in the pan until golden brown. Then put in the oven and bake at 180 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. It is best to use a thermometer – the meat should reach at least 60 degrees in the thickest part.
Let it rest. In general it should rest for as long as it was cooking. Do not worry that it cools down – it just relaxes and retains juicy. Then debone the chicken and we’re done.
To make a sauce, we need to prepare a wine reduction. It is simple, just reduce the wine, vinegar, shallots (we used onions), black pepper and bay leaf to a sirup.
Whisk 3 egg yolks in a bain-marie, add a little broth or water, 3 tbs of the wine reduction and beat until the mixture thickens. Then add clarified butter (I use a classic melted butter – I think that’s fine) and keep stirring until the mixture is creamy. It should have the consistency of lightly whipped cream. If it is too thick, simply dilute it with a little water, if it is too thin, add more butter.
If the sauce splits, it is necessary to make a new base and start again. The trick is that when you cook the egg yolks right from the beginning, the sauce never splits.
Season with lemon juice and salt. Add the finely chopped mint. This sauce is incredibly variable, you can add the crème fraîche, chilli, herbs, tomatoes – basically anything you can think of. Unfortunately, it must be consumed immediately or kept warm for later.
I wanted to use the remaining egg whites, so I made omelettes with spring onion.
Cut the tomatoes in half and sprinkle with salt. Asparagus needs to be gently warmed in a pan with a bit of butter. Ready to serve, enjoy your meal!
