Béarnaise Sauce

Welcome back!

Today, we have a recipe for a sauce that is not actually from Béarn but is still related to the French province. It is similar to Hollandaise sauce and is considered to be a "child sauce" of it, as they both use emulsified butter and egg yolks. The difference is in the flavor, as this sauce uses shallots, peppercorn, and tarragon. Fun fact: tarragon is in the sunflower family!

Béarnaise Sauce

Makes about one cup

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons white wine
4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon peppercorn
1-2 tablespoons shallots, chopped
2 sprigs tarragon
1 sprig parsley
2 egg yolks
8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) clarified butter
1 teaspoon fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
Salt and cayenne to taste
Heavy cream (optional to make it less thick)

Directions

In a small sauce pot, add the first six ingredients (white wine, white wine vinegar, peppercorn, shallots, tarragon, and parsley).
Cook this until the liquid is reduced to about half.
Strain it and cool the sauce.
Add the egg yolks and mix it thoroughly.
Set up a double boiler and put the sauce mixture on top and whisk until it thickens for about 5 minutes.
Slowly add in the clarified butter and whisk it constantly.
Mix in the fresh tarragon leaves, salt, and cayenne.
If you want, you can also add whipping cream to make the sauce thinner.

This sauce is traditionally made for steaks. It is also featured in veal oscar, of which we made a variant: Chicken Oscar. There are actually some variations of this sauce, and they're all a little different for different recipes and different tastes. For example, one variation called Sauce Paloise replaces tarragon with mint, which would be pretty interesting to try.

-Chefpo

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