Skip to main content
Sauce

Bearnaise Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, vinegar, stock, olive oil, onion juice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vinegar and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,843 recipes mention both. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Bearnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks until very light.

  2. Gradually add the stock and olive oil while stirring continuously.

  3. Place over a double boiler and stir constantly until the mixture thickens.

  4. Remove from heat, add salt and pepper, and mix well.

Cool and serve

  1. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Vinegar + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Olive + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together26,431 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,805 recipes

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

  4. Olive + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,463 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 stock and set into a thick, smooth sauce when gently heated.
Olive oil
Adds fat for richness and body, held in suspension by the egg yolks.
White stock
Adds liquid that loosens the yolks and keeps the sauce spoonable.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.

The step that matters

Stir constantly over the double boiler until thickened. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and curdle. Constant stirring over indirect heat spreads the warmth evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, olive, 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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes