Does no one any more own a double boiler? Using one to make béarnaise and hollandaise takes most of the hazard and mess out of the job. Yes, you have to adapt your whisking a bit, but the process is so much easier that you'll find yourself making both sauces much more often.
As an ex-saucier during the restaurant days, the wife of the chef taught me a trick to great Bearnaise (and Hollandaise): using pats of cold butter which prevents overheating the yolks. Always in a stainless bowl intermittently over light simmering steam and with a good flex whisk. Slow and steady, pat by pat, it moves along quickly and yields not only the perfect silky texture every time, but the demand for more, so I always make extra.
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A mystery of chemistry! I like McGee's 1-pan method and have never used 3. I usually am just making enough for 4-6, so the blender or stick-blender methods are more trouble for that small volume. The theory of using clarified butter is that the water that comprises about 20% of whole butter won't further dilute the base of lemon juice or vinegar reduction. Dried tarragon is acceptable if you don't have fresh, and green onions in lieu of shallots. And one needn't take years learning to make this - give it a try!
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30 (!) years ago, I made Bearnaise basically every weekend. With practice, it is easy -- really. No blender required, just your whisk and an eye. This recipe is almost exactly the way I was taught to make it by our Michelin-star chef friend (he taught me how to dribble in melted butter). Although our healthier diet today makes it the exception, I still get a sensual pleasure from classic french butter/egg sauces. Sauce Bearnaise, grass-fed filet mignon and a perfect baguette to sop up the rest---heaven....
Eh, no need for such fuss as the third bowl - working with a brasserie chef here in Belgium, you just 1) do the gastric, or reduced vinegar with shallots etc as indicated here - I use tarragon flavored vinegar to give it an extra kick - 2) then using a small good-quality heavy aluminum pan, like All-Clad, put it on the lowest heat possible and put in your yolks plus in a one-to-one ratio to your gastric, or to taste if you don't like it so acidic, then 3) slowly add the clarified butter in a thin stream, whisking the whole time, until you've got as much sauce as you need. Never needed to do a double-boiler setup as long as you've got good quality cookware and a stove that lets you control the heat.
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Thank you for this somment. It makes me feel as though I can give this sauce a try!
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Hollandaise for asparagus. Bearnaise for steak.
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I'll do it, but I hate tarragon, and that stuff isn't getting anywhere near my kitchen. I'll change it from Sauce Béarnaise to Sauce Helene and call it done.
Had a laugh at that, thanks. Hate is such a string word for such a delicate flavor. Would you try some in a plain lobster salad and reconsider?
You can just say 'my kitchen.'
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Maybe it's hard to believe in Spring in Brooklyn?
He isn't allowed to say "my Brooklyn kitchen"? Or am I missing some other reference to kitchens, either in the article or in the Comments?
If the former, what's wrong with it? Isn't it nice to know that this sauce can be prepared in Brooklyn and not just in a 400-year-old kitchen in Aix-en-Provence or in the kitchens of the Plaza-Athenee in Paris?
Maybe you just put too much vinegar into your sauce....
If the former, what's wrong with it? Isn't it nice to know that this sauce can be prepared in Brooklyn and not just in a 400-year-old kitchen in Aix-en-Provence or in the kitchens of the Plaza-Athenee in Paris?
Maybe you just put too much vinegar into your sauce....
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I agree that bearnaise is a sauce worth mastering, in fact I think it is "the sauce of sauces", and when I order a sauce to go with a fine steak it's always bearnaise. Just be sure if you make it at home not to curdle!
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I agree with Hayford, Julia Child's recipe for blender Bernaise in her "From Julia Child's Kitchen" is delicious, quick, and almost foolproof (actually, I use a food processor). The beauty of the system is that the heat of the melted butter is sufficient, so you don't need to apply and maintain external heat.
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Enjoy. And don't forget to take Crestor after every meal.
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What a flippant response. Maybe if Americans focused more on the quality of what they eat--something this article promotes--than on guilt over enjoying food (a national pastime that is the flip side of those 8000-calorie chain-restaurant dinners), we'd be a lot thinner and healthier even without statins.
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Still on that "fat is poison" habit? We know, bad habits are hard to kick. By the way, I do plenty of Bearnaise, and it's cousin Hollandaise, and I'm 10 pounds over my high school weight. Which was a long time ago, don't ask.
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Now that the good asparagus has arrived, why not? I've made it before, but this recipe seems to be a bit less involved that what I've used before.
Sam, I have to wonder if this sauce will keep (chilled) for a day or two and if it can then be **gently** rewarmed over a very slow double boiler? I think it is at least worth trying; if it breaks, it breaks. Any suggestions? Thank you,
-C.
Sam, I have to wonder if this sauce will keep (chilled) for a day or two and if it can then be **gently** rewarmed over a very slow double boiler? I think it is at least worth trying; if it breaks, it breaks. Any suggestions? Thank you,
-C.
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I wouldn't try to rewarm it, however gently. My experience and reporting suggests it's not worth the hassle -- better to make fresh. If it breaks, add another yolk and all should recombine.
Can't do it that way. The only moderately successful way is to remove it from the fridge, let it come to room temp over several hours, then (in a small bowl or jar or whatnot) put it into some warmish to moderately hot water and whisk gently while it softens. The texture doesn't become *exactly* like the original bearnaise but it's close enough. And it still tastes delicious!
Certainly it can be kept - possibly for even more than just a day or two, though mine is always consumed too soon for me to testify beyond the next day after making it.
Refrigerate the sauce in an airtight container, preferably just large enough to contain the sauce so less air is in contact with it. To warm, set the container of sauce in a bowl of warm tap water. Stir and serve.
I have been making hollandaise and bearnaise for nearly 60 years, and although I began by using a double boiler over-not-in, hot-not-boiling, water, for decades I have been able to make it over direct hear. Just takes a good eye and feel (i.e. experience) for when to stop whisking the eggs and vinegar/lemon juice and to start adding the butter..
Refrigerate the sauce in an airtight container, preferably just large enough to contain the sauce so less air is in contact with it. To warm, set the container of sauce in a bowl of warm tap water. Stir and serve.
I have been making hollandaise and bearnaise for nearly 60 years, and although I began by using a double boiler over-not-in, hot-not-boiling, water, for decades I have been able to make it over direct hear. Just takes a good eye and feel (i.e. experience) for when to stop whisking the eggs and vinegar/lemon juice and to start adding the butter..
For those the love the art of cooking, learning how to make a béarnaise the traditional way is worthwhile.
If, however, the goal here is to make the sauce part of the reportoire of the general public then the blender or stick-blender approach (not mentioned in the article) is the way to go.
If, however, the goal here is to make the sauce part of the reportoire of the general public then the blender or stick-blender approach (not mentioned in the article) is the way to go.
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I'm quite fond of Harold McGee's method for hollandaise, where everything goes in one pan at once. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/may/05/make-per...
I'm sure there's a way to adapt that for bernaise.
I'm sure there's a way to adapt that for bernaise.
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Interesting -- I hit your link. Gotta try that this weekend. For bearnaise, why not try the shallots/tarragon/vinegar reduction in the pot first, let it cool to room temp, then add the eggs/butter per Harold's method....
The Tiimes needs to do something about reducing the space the ads take. Content now runs about 2-3 words per line to accommodate products I promise you I shall never buy.
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Download the plug "adblock" to your computer. I get no adds. A neighbor wiz kid did it on my home computer and now I use it on all my computers. You can disable it at any time.
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The little farm market near my house began selling local asparagus from a farm in Tinton Falls two weeks ago. A pound is $3.99 and the spears have been medium thickness which I prefer. Since then, we've been eating asparagus in all its forms, stir-fried with beef/chicken, steamed with sea salt EVO and good Italian red wine vinegar, steamed with a poached eggs and a drizzle of aged Balsamic vinegar a friend gifted us from Modena and finally last weekend as our own tarragon grew enough to harvest we too made a bearnaise using Juila Child's blender recipe. Sam your recipe is just one more reason to pick up some more fresh Jersey asparagus on my way home from work today.
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There are probably as many ways to make bearnaise as there are to make beef bourguignon or blanquette de veau or the perfect ribeye steak to go with the sauce. I myself have been making it for 50 years now and basically stick with Julia Child's blender recipe and method, although I do try variations and different techniques from time to time....
As the great Fernand Point said, "A béarnaise is nothing but an egg yolk, a shallot, and a little tarragon. But it takes years of practice before the result is perfect."
As the great Fernand Point said, "A béarnaise is nothing but an egg yolk, a shallot, and a little tarragon. But it takes years of practice before the result is perfect."
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i think Point may have also mentioned that it only takes a moment of inattention to ruin the sauce. I always fret about the consistency. i like it thick, not like the apparently thin sauce in the picture accompanying this article. i remember seeing one of the french masters of the 70's saying that a bernaise should be as thick as a mayonnaise, but that sauce can be played with also. my working definition of bernaise...a warm emulsified sauce more or less highly flavored with an herbal reduction. someone else may have said that too.
Yes, I too like it thick, just about like mayonnaise, NOT runny the way it so often is in pictures. Wish I could have gone to La Pyramide a gazillion years ago and seen what M. Point did with it....