Béarnaise Sauce – Maybe My Favorite ‘Aise

I adore a good hollandaise, and couldn’t survive without mayonnaise, but if I had to pick an all-time favorite ’aise, it might just be béarnaise. This tarragon-spiked, shallot-infused hollandaise is absolutely perfect with any and all steaks or roasts; especially lean ones, like our recent salt-crust beef tenderloin.

A sauce made from 75% butter has some advantages, and elevating lean meat is just one of them. This is also excellent on potatoes, vegetables, as well as just about any seafood I can imagine. And as I mentioned in the video, this can be used to make quite the memorable eggs Benedict.

We’re using the same revolutionary technique here that we featured in our last hollandaise sauce video, with one small tweak. If you’re feeling lucky, try to create your hollandaise over medium heat, instead of low. That’s what I usually use, but I played it safe, and went with low heat in that recipe, even though using medium is much faster.

You’ll have to keep an eye on things, but you should get results similar to what you see in this video. By the way, just like when making regular hollandaise you can adjust the thickness by adding in a little hot water if necessary. So, whether you’re going to enjoy this with salt-crusted beef tenderloin, or something else just as special, I hope you give this béarnaise sauce a try soon. Enjoy!

For the reduction:

1 cup fresh tarragon leaves, roughly chopped

1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots

1 rounded teaspoon whole black peppercorns

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 cup white wine

1/3 cup water

For the compound butter:

1/4 cup chopped tarragon

1 teaspoon drained capers

1 tablespoon cold butter

For the béarnaise:

2 large egg yolks

3 tablespoons tarragon vinegar reduction

8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 tablespoon caper tarragon compound butter

salt and cayenne pepper to taste

freshly ground black pepper, optional