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Sauce

Bearnaise Sauce

A sauce made from shallots, tarragon vinegar, malt vinegar, white sauce, egg yolks, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bearnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the shallots.

  2. Boil the shallots in tarragon vinegar for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the white sauce.

  2. Incorporate the egg yolks one at a time, beating after each until smooth.

  3. Add the butter in small pieces while stirring continuously, and do not let the sauce boil.

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. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 set with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body as it emulsifies into the sauce.
White sauce
Provides a stable base that gives the sauce body and helps it hold together.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and tarragon flavor after the shallots simmer in it.
Shallots
Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the flavored vinegar.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil. Yolks scramble when they get too hot, and the butter emulsion can split. Keeping the sauce warm but never boiling keeps it smooth and glossy.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, butter, malt, sauce, egg. 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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