Cucumber Hollandaise

Hollandaise source is terrific with fish; add cucumber to it and it goes perfectly with trout or salmon.  Not difficult to do, but it is well worth while.

Preparation Time: 10 Mins

Cooking Time: 10 Mins

Total Time: 80 Mins

Ingredients

½               Cucumber  - sliced thinly       

                 Salt        

1 tsp            Fennel  - chopped   

                 Tabasco    

                 Hollandaise sauce    

                 Pepper  - freshly ground, black 

For the Hollandaise sauce

1½ tbs          Vinegar  - white wine

1 blade          Mace      

6                Peppercorns         

½               Bay leaf    

60 gms          Butter      

1                Egg  - yolk 

                 Salt        

Method

To prepare the cucumber…

Put the cucumber into a colander, sprinkle with salt and leave to drain for at least an hour. Rinse if the slices are too salty, squeeze them dry in a clean tea towel, then chop them roughly.

Prepare a basic Hollandaise sauce…

Put the vinegar, mace, peppercorns and bay-leaf into a pan and reduce the vinegar to a small dessertspoon.  Set on one side.  Reserve a nut of butter and work the remainder until soft.  Break the yolk into a bowl, add the sieved vinegar and beat well with the nut of butter and a pinch of salt.  Put in a thick saucepan.  Warm the pan to a temperature that is cool enough to touch but no hotter.  Using a whisk work the yolks until thickening and then add the softened butter, bit by bit.  At all times it should be lukewarm rather than hot.  The butter should barely melt and the sauce finish up with a consistency a little softer than mayonnaise.

To finish the sauce…

Add the fennel to the cucumber.  Add the Tabasco to the basic hollandaise sauce and fold in the cucumber just before serving.  Adjust the seasoning if necessary.