Bearnaise Sauce Recipe

You've gotta have a good bearnaise sauce recipe up your sleeve because it goes so well with beef and is the perfect way to round off a grilled steak. I've used it in this grilled filet mignon recipe as an example.

Learning how to make bearnaise sauce can result in a few false starts because it isn't the easiest sauce to make - you've got to go canny with the addition and heating of the egg yolks otherwise it'll be scrambled eggs for supper! A little trick to make it easier and to help stabilize the sauce (ie prevent curdling) is to add a little mustard powder so that's what I'm going to do.

You can split the bearnaise sauce recipe into two activities:-

1. The herb flavor – done by reduction
2. The texture – made over a bain marie (the difficult bit!)

Yield:- 1 cup or 240ml

Preparation Time:- 15 minutes
Cooking Time:- 45 minutes

Total Time:- 1 hour

Ingredients For The Reduction:-

• 1 tablespoon fresh tarragon, chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 4 crushed black peppercorns
• 150ml or 5fl oz white wine

For the sauce:-

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon water
• ½ teaspoon English mustard powder
• 225g or 8oz butter (melt 6oz and keep 2 oz at room temperature)
• salt to taste

Method:-

Throw all ingredients for the reduction into a saucepan and boil until there's about 2 or 3 tablespoons of liquid left then strain this through a sieve so that you're just left with the juice.

Whisk the egg yolks with the mustard in a glass bowl and the place the bowl over a pan of simmering water (not boiling) and add the juice from the reduction and continue to whisk.

Now add the butter at room temperature in small ½ inch (1 cm) cubes at a time and once thoroughly mixed in, gently pour in the melted butter drop by drop whilst continuing to whisk.

As you continue to add the butter, your béarnaise sauce will thicken. When finished, season with salt and pepper & keep your sauce over the warm water until ready to use.

For a bit of fun my wife decided to present this sketch on how to make bearnaise sauce (and she even grills the steaks too) but surely she's not as good as me?

See Also:-

Apple Brandy Glaze
Marie Rose Sauce
Mint Coriander Chutney
Lemon Butter Sauce For Grilled Salmon
More Homemade Barbecue Sauce

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