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A few weeks ago I made Eggs Benedict for VC. To do so, I had to plan in advance, learning how to (this’ll show you how much effort I normally spend in the kitchen) clarify butter, make poached eggs, and make hollandaise sauce. It took me almost a dozen eggs to make a good poached egg. But now I know! The hollandaise sauce wasn’t difficult. I got it right the first time but it sure is time consuming. 20 minutes of “constant stirring” is a bother. So this week I tried hollandaise sauce from a mix.

Concord Foods Hollandaise Sauce Mix. “Simply Add water and cook”

It cooks quick enough…. 1 cup of warm water in a sauce pan, add the packet, set to medium-low heat, 6 minutes of constant stirring later and it had thickened.

But for taste it kind of fell flat. It -looks- perfect. Right-on consistancy & color. And it doesn’t taste bad, it just doesn’t jump out at you and say, “I am hollandaise, love and cherish me!” I don’t know, maybe my taste buds were biased by the amount of time they knew was put into real hollandaise. Maybe if I added a little clarified butter and lemon to perk it up. Yeah, thinking about it, I think it was seriously lacking in the tangy-lemon department.

I might try it again sometime but I’ll definitely have to fiddle with the flavor to make it work. That takes away from the ease of use, though if worked correctly, it could still save 15 minutes and setting up that odd double-steamer setup for authentic hollandaise.

For now, out of 5, I give it:
Appearance: 5
Taste: 2