Béarnaise sauce

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 6 people, you will need:

• 1 2 egg yolks
• 2 100 g butter
• 3 1 bunch Chervil
• 4 1 bunch tarragon
• 5 100 ml dry white wine
• 6 100 ml white (spirit) vinegar
• 7 1 pinch flour
• 8 1 shallot
• 9 Salt
• 10 Pepper
• Total weight: 385 grams

Times:

Preparation	Cooking	Start to finish
40 min.	30 min.	1 hour 6 min.

Step by step recipe

• 1: Peel and chop finely 1 shallot.
  Chop tarragon and chervil finely.
  Reserve one teaspoon of chopped herbs for garnishing.
• 2: Put shallot and herbs in a small pan, salt and pepper generously.
• 3: Pour in 100 ml white (spirit) vinegar and 100 ml dry white wine.
  Reduce over low heat until you are left with about 1/5 of the original volume.
• 4: Pour the contents of the pan into a chinois or a strainer, and squeeze herbs to extract the juices.
• 5: You should get only 2 to 4 tablespoons of this tasty liquid which is the base for your sauce.
  This base could be made several days beforehand, and kept in a sealed jar in the fridge.
• 6: On the day of preparation, melt 100 g butter, then skim off the foam that has formed and discard it.
  The goal is to obtain butter that is as clear as possible, free of the usual white impurities—which are whey—and which you’ll let settle at the bottom.
  Let it cool.
  Note: The correct amount of butter is about 50 g per egg yolk.
• 7: Prepare a double boiler.
  In the bowl of the double boiler, add 2 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons of sauce base per egg yolk, and 1 pinch flour.
• 8: Put over low heat, and beat to form a sabayon.
• 9: Continue to beat until it thickens, and "holds" the whisk.
• 10: Then add the melted butter, a little at a time, while beating continously.
• 11: Your Béarnaise will develop its texture. Continue until all the butter is added, apart from the very last bit in the container with all the impurities (discard).
• 12: And finally add the spoonful of herbs.
  Serve without too much delay. If your dish is not ready, leave the sauce to wait in the bain-marie, not too hot, with a lid.

Remarks

A bit of technique: Béarnaise sauce is one of a group of warm emulsified sauces (along with hollandaise sauce and mousseline sauce, for example), meaning it starts with a hot base—in this case, a very flavorful sabayon—into which butter is incorporated while whisking to achieve a creamy texture.
There are only two figures to remember for warm emulsified sauces like Béarnaise: 2–3 tablespoons of reduction and 50–80 grams of butter per egg yolk.
Chefs have a different way of doing this; generally, they do everything in the same saucepan, without a double boiler. It’s faster, but more difficult.

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