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Sauce

Sauce Bearnaise

A rich sauce made with shallots, garlic, allspice, mace, tarragon vinegar, egg yolks, butter, and tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,874 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sauce Bearnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the reduction

  1. In a saucepan, combine shallots, garlic, allspice, mace, water, and tarragon vinegar.

  2. Boil gently until reduced to about 1 cup.

  3. Strain and let it cool.

Finish the sauce

  1. Gradually mix the strained liquid with the beaten egg yolks.

  2. Add salt and butter, stirring over low heat until thickened.

  3. Stir in chopped tarragon.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Allspice + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently cook.
Butter
Adds richness and body, and helps form a smooth emulsion with the yolks.
Tarragon vinegar
Provides acidity and sharp flavor, reduced to concentrate it into the base.
Shallots
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the reduction.

The step that matters

Thickening over low heat. Egg yolks set at a narrow temperature range. Heating them too fast or too hot scrambles them, while gentle low heat and steady stirring let the yolks thicken the butter into a smooth emulsion.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, clove, garlic, allspice, tarragon, vinegar, egg):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Capersbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, clove, garlic, allspice, tarragon, vinegar, egg. 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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