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Bearnaise Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, clarified butter, salt, pepper, and tarragon, thickened over low heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tarragon 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 emulsion

  1. Beat the egg yolks lightly in a small saucepan.

  2. Stir continuously over low heat until they begin to thicken.

  3. Remove from heat and add one-third of the butter, stirring until melted.

  4. Return to low heat and add another third of the butter, stirring for 2 minutes.

  5. Repeat with the final third of the butter.

Season and finish

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in tarragon after cooling for 1-2 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Egg + tarragontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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 their proteins gently set with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, silky body.
Tarragon
Adds the characteristic herbal, aniseed aroma that defines the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the heat low while the yolks thicken. Egg yolk proteins set quickly when overheated, so the sauce can scramble into curds instead of staying a smooth emulsion. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the yolks evenly warmed so the butter can bind in.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonthe original
  4. Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, 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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