I had a fancy for a proper bank holiday brunch, so made up a batch of hollandaise sauce to go with poached eggs on toast and asparagus. Making hollandaise can always be a bit stressful, but using Nigel Slater's Appetite recipe as my guide, I usually get through. I use the yolk of one egg in a Pyrex bowl over a pan of gently boiling water, then whisk in about 60g cold butter, a few cubes at a time until it's all melted into a thick yellow sauce. I add a squeeze of lemon juice and a bit of salt and cover until needed. The problem usually comes when the eggs are cooked and the toast toasted ... when I go back to uncover and stir my sauce, it can, as it did today, split into a nasty-looking, curdled mess. Nigel's solution of adding a splash of cold water and whisking again, worked a treat as always! Unfortunately, all that rich sauce and eggs seems to have given me indigestion for the rest of the day ... probably serves me right!
Dinner started off with the jar of homemade mint sauce still in the fridge from the week before last, which I thought I ought to use up, so it called for lamb, again. I quickly sealed a couple of chunky, Welsh rump steaks in a frying pan, then popped them in the oven for about 8 minutes to cook through. I did some braised, French-style veg - a leek, some fresh peas and broad beans, softened gently in some butter with a sliced clove of garlic and some chopped mint, then I added a slurp of white wine and let them cook gently, covered for about 15 mins. Together with some new potatoes - briefly boiled, then squashed and roasted with some sea salt and chopped rosemary - and of course, the mint sauce. Spot on. Sorry, it's a bit of a blurry photo, but I was eager to dig in!
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