Tronçons de Colin Pochés, Sauce Hollandaise

Poached Hake Steaks with Hollandaise Sauce
(Rodaballo)

Two things to learn today:

1. Court Bouillon
2. Hollandaise Sauce
   

One of which worked just fine for me.

Court Bouillon is a heavily (vegetable) flavored soupy/water thing. Heavy salted to cook (poach) the fish. It's a classic French cooking product. Gotta learn it.

Item 2 was a little more troublesome.
Hollandaise Sauce is well known for giving cooking students headaches. For example, of the 9 of us in the practical room 4 "broke" their sauce (that's when a smooth sauce separates and becomes wierdly lumpy).
Yes, I was one of the 9.

Advice: when holding the sauce (once it's made) warm over a bain marie make sure it's not actually touching the water - trust me on this one - the eggs might cook/coagulate otherwise.

Advice 2: When making the sauce include all the ingredients. Especially the water - in fact the whole trick to Hollandaise Sauce is the water.

What happened it that I was merrily whisking my eggs over boiling water and the chef wanders by, casts a glance my way and says... "More water" (well, in French he says that). I say ¿more water? and he says "Yes, more water" (although this time in Spanish). I say "Some water" - to him. He says "water, water" (in English). I say "sorry, forgot, it has no water yet - I forgot. He raises his eyebrows and carries on elsewhere.
I say "Merci Chef". Hoping for forgivness.

Eventually when the troublesome sauce was evaluated it got a quote "perfect" unquote from the chef. Very satisfying. Salt good, lemon perfect, cayanne enough.