Hollandaise

In the culinary arts, the term "mother sauce" refers to any one of five basic sauces, which are the starting points for making various secondary sauces or "small sauces."

They're called mother sauces because each one is like the head of its own unique family of sauces.

The 5 mother sauces are:

Veloute

Espanole

Bechamel

Tomato

Hollandaise

Hollandaise is really just a liquid and a thickening agent, plus flavorings. Hollandaise is a tangy, buttery sauce made by slowly whisking clarified butter into warm egg yolks. So the liquid here is the clarified butter and the thickening agent is the egg yolks.

Hollandaise is an emulsified sauce, and we use clarified butter when making a Hollandaise because whole butter, which contains water and milk solids, can break the emulsion. Clarified butter is just pure butterfat, so it helps the emulsion remain stable.

Hollandaise sauce can be used on its own, and it's particularly delicious on seafood, vegetables and eggs. But there are also a number of small sauces that can be made from Hollandaise:

Here are just a few:
bearnaise sauce - hollandaise flavored with tarragon, black peppercorn and shallots.
dijon sauce - dijon mustard added to classic Hollandaise.
choron sauce - tomato paste added to classic Hollandaise.

Contigo's hollandaise is made classically with clarified butter, egg yolks, and a touch of lemon juice and Tabasco for seasoning.

**If you ever see Sous Chef Chris Kleyla stressed out towards the later part of brunch it is usually because the hollandaise has broken its state of emulsification.