Hollandaise Sauce Boss: When Cannabis Meets French Cuisine

Margaret 00:00:06 What happens when you take a love of food, a passion for culture, and a deep knowledge of cannabis and you toss them all into one bowl. Yet bite me. The show that helps you take control of your high life and helps cooks make great edibles at home. I'm your host, Margaret, a certified Ganjier, a TCI certified cannabis educator, and I believe your kitchen is the best dispensary you'll ever have. Together, we'll explore stories, the science, and the sheer joy of making safe, effective, and unforgettable edibles at home. So pre-heat your oven and let's get ready for a great episode. So welcome friends! Back to the show! Adam. Propaganda free since 2019. Well, I guess that's not entirely true. Does it count if I advertise my own stuff on the show? I'm not really sure how that fits, but I am independent. You will most likely never find ads for Saatva mattresses or athletic greens or whatever the trending advertisement is of the day. Because for the most part, I really just can't get behind a lot of that shit.

Margaret 00:01:12 He'll still definitely never hear anything from like, DraftKings or that kind of stuff. But maybe I'm leaving money on the table, as they say, but I think not. I think really that what's most important is the relationship that I have with you, dear listener. And I'm pretty sure you are probably not that interested in hearing about the latest and greatest in mattresses. And actually, I did buy a mattress not that long ago. It wasn't Saatva. If you want to know what I ended up going with, just shoot me a message because I found out very quickly when I started looking around online with all the options, I started getting so many advertisements popping up in my stories and on my Instagram page, which is which is a little a little creepy. I'm sure that's happened to you before as well, and I didn't realize how many mattress companies were out there. Who knew? So today we're going to be talking about hollandaise sauce. And this is a sauce that was the recipe was generously provided by Chef Adam van der Mey of your chef.

Margaret 00:02:17 If you haven't yet listened to that episode that I did with Chef Adam, I highly recommend it. Adam is great, and he's also a regular contributor over at the Bite Me Cannabis Club. He posts monthly cooking videos that are just incredible. I am happy to support the work that he's doing, because he's also doing a lot of in-person events now in his local community. Adam has been a chef for many years before switching over to culinary cannabis, so I would really suggest that you check out that episode. Adam is great and a long time listener, which is kind of fun because it's sort of a full story, a full story moment, if you will. Now, before we get into today's delicious recipe, I just wanted to mention a couple of things. First of all, why don't we do a stoner trivia race for 20? Trivia card game selection. I know you all love this. Actually, I don't really know. Nobody's told me one way or the other, so I'm just going to keep doing them because I kind of like it.

Margaret 00:03:19 Today's card is a movie question. In this 1994 movie, Jay and Silent Bob sell weed in front of a convenience store. Oh, my God, that one's too easy. Let's try a different one. I mean, if you guess Jay and Silent Bob strikes back, how obvious can that question be? Let's try another one, shall we? Friends. I'm gonna grab a question. A card. Randomly from the deck, a photo mysteriously appeared. Of what? Olympic gold medalist smoking marijuana out of a bong. Was it Michael Phelps, Bruce Jenner, or Lindsey Vaughn? A photo mysteriously appeared of what? Olympic gold medalist smoking marijuana out of a bong. If you guessed Michael Phelps, multiple Olympic gold medal winner, then you would be correct. I do kind of remember the hoopla around all of that. I think what I remember most though, which was super controversial, mainly because the athlete was Canadian, was Ross Gagliardi. I think I said that correctly. He was a snowboarder. Surprise, surprise.

Margaret 00:04:18 I don't know, that just fits with the stoner stereotype in many ways, but he was a snowboarder who won an Olympic medal and then had it rescinded because of something around cannabis usage. I forget, and I don't know, it was a big thing. I think he eventually got it back, and I think we could probably all agree that cannabis is not a performance enhancing drug. I also wanted to mention that I have a new merch shop. I've actually had it for a little while, but I've been trying to sort of figure out how to get it to work properly with shipping and taxes and all this kind of thing. There's more to figure out than you would think. So if you head over to my podcast shop, you will see all the work that I've been doing. And if you want to support the show, this is a great way to do it while expressing your love of brightly to the wider public. And I'm trying to add new designs there on a relatively regular basis. And of course, if you have any requests, just let me know.

Margaret 00:05:16 This is something that is kind of fun. It's on my creative side and feedback is always welcome. I welcome feedback all the time because that is the way that I can make the show better. For you, dear listeners. And of course, please share this episode with someone that you think would enjoy it. Sharing is caring and that really helps spread the word of the show. Word of mouth really is one of the best ways because also I'm in the cannabis space. I can't advertise on most traditional podcast advertising platforms because they just don't accept anything related to drugs, quote unquote. And I think that's in large part because a lot of these platforms are based in the US, and without federal legalization, that's going to be their stance until until they change such laws. So as a small, independent creator. Word of mouth is still the best way to do it. My friends and I also don't have super deep pockets, so that would be great. Eat. Let's talk hollandaise sauce. The recipe for hollandaise sauce was shared with me from Chef Adam Varnum.

Margaret 00:06:20 Hollandaise sauce, as he says, is one of the five classic French mother sauces. Traditionally a brunch star over eggs Benedict but equally incredible on asparagus, fish or steak. This recipe makes it approachable at home, with the option to infuse either THC or CBD, or a balanced mix of both. Now, as I learned trying to create this recipe, it turns out that one of five French mother sauces is a little trickier than it would first seem. And the first time I made it, my sauce did not work out. So let me remind you that if you're doing this one for the first time, don't use infused ingredients. Because guess what I did? I used a nice CBD infused butter for that particular first trial and the sauce broke. I wasted all that ingredient and you kind of waste the ingredient. Regardless, I'm not really sure what you can do with a broken hollandaise sauce. And when you when you're asking like. But, Mark, what does it mean for a sauce to break when you see it? You'll know, because we've all probably had an eggs Benedict at some point, or some kind of food with a hollandaise sauce on top, which is essentially egg yolks, lemon and butter with a little bit of salt or cayenne pepper.

Margaret 00:07:32 I mean, it's a very simple sauce, very rich. I mean, we imagine this nice, rich yellow sauce, and when it breaks, it turns out not like a sauce at all, but like a chunky yellow mess. Yes, that's what happened to me. So the first time I did use and I. Oh my God, how many times have I said this on the show and did not take my own advice? I should get a slap on the wrist for that because I know better. But here we are. Sometimes I need to remind myself via my own mistakes. That is my first and foremost recommendation. Now. Essentially, like I said, all you need for this recipe are your egg yolks, lemon juice. It says fresh lemon juice, but I always have a bottle of organic lemon juice in the fridge because I don't always have lemon juice, and I don't always want to run to the store to buy a lemon. Anytime I want to make some kind of recipe that takes a bit of lemon in it.

Margaret 00:08:25 It is handy for having having lemons in the fridge for like lemon zest. Bottled lemon juice seem to work just fine for me. And then the unsalted butter I might use. Salted butter I hope doesn't give me a slap on the hand. Of course, when you're using butter, that's your infusion point, so you can replace some or all of the butter with THC infused butter or CBD infused butter. He also said you could do a CBD infused ghee or oil. I only tried it with butter. What you're going to do for this very simple and yet a little bit tricky sauce is you're going to set up a double broiler, so you're going to get a little like a small amount of water in a pan, and you're going to put a bowl on top of it. Now I actually had like a bowl, like a metal double broiler pan that goes over top of the pot. So whatever system you have, you want it to be heat proof and you don't want it to touch the water. And then you basically whisk your yolks and lemon together in the bowl over some low heat.

Margaret 00:09:24 And you got a whisk. Honestly, my arms started to get tired as I was whisking, but you're whisking the egg yolks and the lemon juice together until it's slightly thickened. And then you're going to slowly add your butter. And I can't emphasize this enough. Very slowly drizzle in warm melted butter. So you have melted butter. I just melted mine in the microwave. You could do it on the stove too in a separate pot, I suppose, if you wish to buy it, you want warm melted butter and you're whisking constantly while this is happening, while you're drizzling in this butter, until the sauce thickens and becomes glossy, and then you whisk in a pinch of salt. Add a little lemon juice to taste, if that's your preference, and remove from heat and use immediately. Pretty simple honestly, but that slow whisking in of the warm butter is a pretty important step. And this is where your sauce will likely not work out if you try and do this too quickly. In total, the sauce comes together in like five minutes maybe.

Margaret 00:10:27 It's a very quick and easy sauce to put together, which is lovely, but if you mess up then you're going to be wasting a lot of ingredients. So slowly, slowly, slowly. Have I emphasized that enough? What do we want to do? Slowly add the butter. Because the first time I think I added it too quickly. And I also think I had my double broiler set over heat. And then I kind of turned up the heat to get the water simmering and heated right away, and then didn't turn it down again. So I think I did mine over medium heat, whereas the first time when I did it successfully in the first time, I had it higher than that and I think it was just too hot as well. So when I slowly added the butter, it just almost immediately started to turn into this like chunky kind of gross mass. And then the second time I did it, which was not infused, was lovely. It turned out as it should. It definitely worked out much better the second time and that is what I did.

Margaret 00:11:23 I turned the heat down a little bit on the double broiler, and I added that butter in so damn slowly and that's it. This sauce, I would definitely recommend that you use it up pretty much right away, because I used some of it and then I left. I had seen online because I've seen some other versions of making this hollandaise sauce, which now that I've actually successfully completed it a second time, it seems a little unnecessary, to do some of these other methods I've seen online. But they did say that you want to use this sauce pretty much right away. And I found I use some and then the rest of it, like I tried to keep it warm on the stove like somebody had suggested for later use, and it didn't really hold very well for infusing. I love that Adam includes infusion notes in his recipe, but if your infused butter contains around ten milligrams of THC per tablespoon, and you use two tablespoons in your recipe. The batch will have about 20mg of THC, and with eight servings, that's 2.5mg of THC proportion.

Margaret 00:12:27 And that's great for microdosing at brunch. And again, you know, you don't necessarily want to blast off every single time you use an edible, but having some of that THC and CBD circulating in the body, even if you're not necessarily getting like a strong dose, that's going to give you a a noticeable high. I think is wise. And of course, you can always swap in CBD infused ghee or olive oil for a mellow therapeutic version. I'm assuming, of course, you can do a CBD infused butter as well, which is what I did the first time it didn't work out. You could also try a balanced option if you have happen to have both. And I know there's a lot of growers that listen to this particular podcast podcast. So if you have the option, having the plethora of THC and CBD on hand, or a ratio to cannabis, you can always use a ratio. Cannabis to make your infusions as well. That's going to give you a smoother, gentler effect now. Don't forget that I do have an infusion guide over on Bite Me podcast.com to help you figure out the math if you choose.

Margaret 00:13:32 There's also a calculator on the website, so there's a lot of different ways you can figure out how much THC is going to be in your source. And I do recommend it. It's oftentimes you don't need nearly as much cannabis in your infusions than you think you do, because a little bit can go a long way. Remember that one gram of cannabis is the equivalent of 1000mg, which you then times by the percentage.

Margaret 00:13:56 Of THC to get the total milligrams in your infusion or recipe.

Margaret 00:14:01 How are you going to use this particular source? I mean, most people think hollandaise sauce and they think immediately of eggs Benedict and Eggs Benedict is delicious. But maybe you don't want to go to all the trouble of preparing your eggs and the other things that go along with an eggs Benedict. It's not. I know some people that love eggs Benedict. It's okay. It's all right. It's not necessarily my favorite breakfast go to when I have the option, but some of the suggestions are also roasted asparagus or green beans.

Margaret 00:14:34 I mean, that sounds delicious. Grilled salmon or steak? And here's how I used it for roasted potatoes as a dipping sauce. I think you could drizzle it on top, which is what I did. And as you can see, this is a perfect example of how your cannabis infusions can elevate a classic sauce. And thanks to Chef Adam for sharing this particular recipe with me. With that, my friends, I hope you tried this recipe out again. Thank you so much for Chef Adam VanderMeer for sharing this recipe and for being so awesome. I do have several interviews coming up that I have booked and I'm excited about that. I think you're really going to enjoy them. I'm working on getting a vet onto the show as well because we've been talking over I mean, I've been thinking about this for a while, but it really came to a head when a lot of people were asking questions over at the Bite Me Cannabis Club about, you know, dosing for pets, in large part because we had a discussion about how dogs are very sensitive to THC.

Margaret 00:15:40 So we've been told. And my daughter's dog actually just recently had to be taken to the vet because it seemed like there was something quite wrong with her. And it turns out she was just really high. She had gotten into some weed. We're not really sure how because my daughter actually doesn't consume any cannabis. You go to the vet and they just basically tell you she'll be fine, she'll survive. Just let her sleep it off. But then that begs the question. It's the dose. That's the poison, right? But I am no doctor and I'm no expert in pets. I'm not a vet, so I would like to have an expert on the show to talk about using CBD in particular, because that always seems to be what you can find on the internet for using with pets, but also at what levels are THC harmful to animals. And it could just be that they're super sensitive to THC, like a very little amount goes a long way, but probably also depends on the weight of the animal as well.

Margaret 00:16:35 And let's not forget that when a dog is getting in to somebody's stash, they're not exactly likely going to restrain themselves, so they're probably over consuming by quite a bit. When that happened, that is something else that I'm working on for all y'all. If there's any kind of topics or guests that you would like me to cover, please reach out. I am more than willing to consider your suggestions. So to recap hollandaise sauce. It can be a bit tricky. Just have patience, drizzle on that stuff slow and if it's your first time, don't use infused ingredients. If you're unsure of how it's going to turn out. Without my friends, I am your host, Margaret. And until next time, stay high.