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Sauce

Bearnaise Sauce

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bearnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Set a small bowl in a pan of boiling water.

  2. Turn the beaten egg yolks into the bowl.

  3. Stir in the oil slowly, similar to making mayonnaise.

  4. Gradually add the hot water while stirring.

  5. Once thick and smooth, remove from heat.

  6. Stir in the vinegar, salt, and cayenne.

Store

  1. Set aside in a cool place.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + tarragontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,572 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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, giving the sauce its thick, smooth body.
Salad oil or melted butter
Provides fat that is emulsified into the yolks, adding richness and a silky texture.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and tarragon aroma that balance the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the oil slowly. Adding oil too fast before the yolks can absorb it breaks the emulsion, so the sauce separates instead of turning thick and smooth.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, vinegar, 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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