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Bermese Sauce for Fillets of Beef

A sauce made with shallots, egg yolks, tarragon vinegar, plain vinegar, white sauce, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bermese Sauce for Fillets of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Reduce the vinegar base

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the tarragon vinegar and plain vinegar and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the chopped shallots and cook for a few minutes.

Finish the sauce

  1. Stir in the white sauce and then add the egg yolks one at a time.

  2. Finally, add the butter in small pieces, stirring until melted and combined.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as their proteins set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture as it melts in.
Tarragon vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity and herbal flavour that define the sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild savoury aroma and depth to the vinegar base.
White sauce
Adds body and thickness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins thicken when heated gently but scramble into lumps if the sauce is too hot or the yolks go in too quickly. Adding them one at a time while stirring lets each one blend in and thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, tarragon, vinegar, butter, sauce. 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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