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Sauce

Bbenaise Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, olive oil, cayenne pepper, hot water, parsley, tarragon, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bbenaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks slightly.

  2. Gradually add the olive oil and hot water while continuing to beat.

  3. Place the bowl over a larger pan of hot water and stir constantly until the mixture thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients.

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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  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 the oil and water and thicken the sauce as they gently cook.
Olive oil
Provides fat that, emulsified into the yolks, gives the sauce its rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the fat.
Tarragon
Contributes the characteristic aromatic, herbal flavor of the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening over hot water. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot, and the sauce can split. Stir constantly over gentle, indirect heat so the yolks thicken smoothly into an emulsion.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, pepper, tarragon, vinegar. 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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