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Sauce Bearnaise

A sauce made from shallots, herbs, vinegar, butter, egg yolks, water, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sauce Bearnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the reduction

  1. In a saucepan, combine shallots, chervil, tarragon, green onion, and vinegar.

  2. Reduce the mixture by half and let it cool.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add butter, egg yolks, water, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Place the saucepan over low heat and stir until the sauce thickens.

  3. Strain the sauce and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently cook.
Butter
Provides fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the sauce its rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness and carries the herb flavors.
Tarragon
Contributes the characteristic aromatic flavor of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until the sauce thickens. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot. Gentle, constant stirring over low heat lets the yolks thicken and emulsify with the butter into a smooth sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, chervil, tarragon, vinegar, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, chervil, tarragon, vinegar, butter, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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