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Sauce

Bearnaise Sauce

A sauce made from shallots or onion, vinegar, butter, egg yolks, white sauce, parsley, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil 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 ↓

Bearnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the reduction

  1. Chop the shallots or onion and place them in a pan with the vinegar.

  2. Reduce the mixture to 1 tablespoon.

  3. Strain the mixture and add it to the white sauce, mixing well.

Finish the sauce

  1. In a larger pan of boiling water, whisk in the egg yolks one at a time.

  2. Remove from heat and add the butter in small pieces, ensuring each piece is dissolved before adding the next.

  3. Reheat before serving and stir in finely chopped parsley and chervil.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots or onion
Provide aromatic flavour that infuses the vinegar reduction.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently cook.
Butter
Adds richness and body, forming a smooth emulsion with the yolks.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and characteristic flavour when reduced with the aromatics.

The step that matters

Adding the butter. Butter must be added in small pieces, each fully dissolved before the next. Adding it too fast or over too much heat can break the emulsion, leaving the sauce greasy or curdled.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, butter, tarragon, vinegar, egg, chervil, 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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