Bearnaise Sauce Recipe

Classic Restaurant Sauce Recipe

Bearnaise Sauce is a variation of Hollandaise Sauce. The major difference is that tarragon - wine vinegar reduction is part of the Béarnaise.

It is a traditional sauce for steak but Béarnaise is a wonderful sauce for almost all meats, vegetables, some seafood, and potatoes.

Restaurant customers (my guests) absolutely love this sauce with grilled wild King or sockeye salmon.

Béarnaise sauce may not be the best choice for most egg dishes. I prefer using Hollandaise Sauce with egg dishes.

And, if you are into a low carbohydrate diet, you're going to be fine using this sauce recipe.

To make this sauce successfully, you must carefully control the heat. Too high heat will cause the egg yolk to curdle. If the heat is too low, the sauce will probably not thicken properly. And if you add the butter too quickly while cooking, the mixture may separate and ruin your sauce.

Bearnaise Sauce Recipe

Preparation time: 15 minutes.  Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup dry tarragon
• 1/2 cup red wine wine
• 12 egg yolks
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
• 24 ounces of clarified butter

Instructions:

• In a small sauce pan, cook 1/2 cup red wine vinegar with 1/4 cup dry tarragon until no moisture remains
• Set mixture aside and let cool
• Beat the egg yolks together with a wire whip and slowly add the boiling water while whipping
• Add the lemon juice, salt, cayenne (and garlic powder if desired) and beat over boiling water until eggs are cooked and the mixture is semi-thick
• Very gradually add hot clarified butter one ladle at a time to the egg mixture, again whipping constantly until the sauce has the thickness you desire
• Fold the tarragon mixture into the egg mixture

That's it! You're done!

Enjoy your restaurant sauce for Bearnaise and the food you marry with it and the company of those you share it with! - Donna

"A Béarnaise sauce is simply an egg yolk, a shallot, a little tarragon vinegar, and butter, but it takes practice for the result to be perfect."

Fernand Point (1897-1955)

"We Americans are mildly interested, of course, in reading about the discovery of radium by Madame Curie, but what we really yearn to know is the name of the un-commemorated French female who first mixed a sauce Bearnaise."

Frank Crowninshield