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Sauce

Sauce “ Bearnaise.”

A sauce made from shallots, vinegar, egg yolks, clear gravy, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sauce “ Bearnaise.”

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the reduction

  1. Peel the shallots.

  2. Place the peeled shallots in a saucepan with vinegar.

  3. Simmer gently until all essences are extracted.

  4. Strain the liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the yolks of eggs in a jar.

  2. Place the jar in a saucepan of water.

  3. Stir the eggs gently with a wooden spoon until they begin to thicken.

  4. Add the gravy.

  5. Gently stir in the lemon juice and shallot essence.

  6. Season with pepper and salt.

  7. Simmer for a few more minutes.

  8. Serve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken gently with heat to form the emulsified body of the sauce.
Shallots
Provide the aromatic flavour base, extracted into the vinegar reduction.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and carries shallot flavour during the initial simmer.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the rich yolks.
Rich clear gravy
Adds savoury depth and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the yolks over gentle heat. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot. Gentle, indirect heat from a water bath lets the proteins thicken slowly into a smooth emulsion, so stirring steadily and keeping the water from boiling matters.

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Spinachabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, lemon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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