How to make the perfect béarnaise sauce
With more than 250 recipes and useful tips, Julius Jaspers shows you in the handy and delicious book Sausbijbel, using clear instructions and step-by-step photography, how to make the best sauces and flavorings yourself. From BBQ sauces to butter sauces, and from dressings, oils and vinaigrettes to sauces for vegetables, meat, fish and shellfish. Naturally, the perfect béarnaise sauce is included too.
Béarnaise sauce is the textbook example of a sauce thickened with egg that can easily split. When heated too much (above 65 °C), the egg coagulates and the whole thing splits. The sauce is named after the birthplace of King Henri IV, Béarn, and was invented by chef Jean-Louis Françoise-Collinet, who also happened to invent pommes soufflées.
How to make the perfect béarnaise sauce
- Bring the white wine vinegar, white wine, shallot and half of the tarragon to a boil in a saucepan. Reduce to 2 tablespoons. This is the gastrique.
- Pass the sauce through a sieve and press as much liquid as possible out of the shallot.
- Bring water to a boil in a saucepan and place a heatproof bowl on top.
- Whisk the egg yolks in the bowl. Add the gastrique and whisk until the sauce is firm and airy.
- Mount the sauce by whisking in cold cubes of butter. Make sure each cube of butter has melted before adding another.
- Add the remaining tarragon and the chervil, and season the sauce with salt and pepper. If desired, keep the sauce warm for a while in the bowl, or in a thermos rinsed with hot water. Note: béarnaise sauce is thermolabile. The herbs lose their flavor if you keep the sauce warm for too long.
Title: Sausbijbel
Author: Julius Jaspers
Price: €33,99
Publisher: Carrera Culinair
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