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Sauce

Bearnaise Sauce

A rich sauce made with shallots, peppercorns, thyme, tarragon vinegar, white sauce, egg yolks, butter, and optional tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Bearnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the reduction

  1. In a saucepan, combine shallots, peppercorns, thyme, and tarragon vinegar.

  2. Cover and boil until well reduced, then remove the thyme.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in white sauce and a little meat glaze.

  2. Remove from heat and whisk in egg yolks.

  3. Gradually work in butter pieces until smooth.

  4. Strain through a fine strainer.

  5. Add finely chopped tarragon if desired.

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. Thyme + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 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 the butter and thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and body, forming a smooth emulsion with the yolks.
Tarragon vinegar
Provides acidity and the characteristic tarragon aroma after reduction.
Shallots
Add aromatic sweetness and flavour that concentrates during reduction.

The step that matters

Working in the butter. Adding butter too quickly or with too much heat can split the emulsion, so the sauce turns oily. Add the pieces gradually while whisking, keeping the heat gentle so the egg yolks thicken without scrambling.

Swap the tarragon

The recipe marks tarragon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, thyme, vinegar, sauce, meat, egg, butter):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, thyme, vinegar, sauce, meat, egg, butter. 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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