Recipe: Béarnaise Sauce

[ellyssian]

• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 2 tb tarragon vinegar
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 1 tb chervil, finely chopped
• 1 tb tarragon, finely chopped
• 2 crushed white peppercorns
• 3 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup melted butter

Here we have the fully-loaded preparatory shot ~ with components above and beyond what are needed for the sauce, but for the entire Valentine's Feast:



Because we needed to create the ingredient "melted butter" from scratch with nothing but an unmelted bit of butter, and because other ingredients required "softened butter", I decided to double the batch of the latter and then use the "softened butter" to make "melted butter" ~ sure it sounds complicated, but it really wasn't all that difficult. If you watch this shot for an hour you'll get an idea of the hard work involved in this first transmutation from one thing to another:



Place wine, shallots, and herbs in a saucepan.



Reduce over low heat to half the volume. I had some shots of this, but they were a bit too dark, even amongst all these other overly dark shots, so if you close your eyes and pretend, you'll probably see as much as the photos show.

Strain liquid back into saucepan and allow to cool. Someday I'll remember to pick up another small strainer ~ I have no idea what happened to the one I thought we had but this was the second time in a week or so that I had to pop out the strainer from the tea pot:



Divide butter into teaspoon sized portions. Okay, we skipped this step. We also melted the butter, which made it kind of silly to slice it into slabs. We just took it nice and easy, although aequitaslevitas did use a table spoon (as opposed to a tablespoon) to parse out tiny, tiny portions of the egg. He was also the eggspert at separating the yolk and white ~ of course, since it was his first time doing so, it was no yolking matter:



Place saucepan in bain-marie (clearly, I set this up in the bain-marie to begin with, as the shot above shows!) and begin adding, alternately and very slowly, the melted butter and the egg yolks. In this shot, we're just about to apply some heat to the bain-marie and start things off, with the yolks to one side, and the melted butter staying melted through some oven heat:



Stir briskly with a wooden spoon or a whisk, scraping the mixture away from the sides and bottom.

Do not allow the water to boil. This is where a bain-marie ~ with all that visible space around the saucepan ~ comes in handy. A glass bottom on a double boiler will also allow you to keep an eyeball on the situation, but if you're using one made from an opaque material, be very careful ~ the sauce will curdle and break if you actually allow things to get boiling.

While photographs might help show this stage and the last few steps, basically, I had one hand on the bain-marie, one hand on the whisk, and aequitaslevitas had one hand on the butter and one on the spoon for the egg, so we were fresh out of limbs for holding cameras or snapping shots from here on out.

Once everything is added, it should be thick like a very firm mayonnaise. I knew this would happen, but seeing the ingredients, and seeing the mixing in progress, it still was a pleasant surprise to see it actually working and coming together, with the right color and texture.

May be done up to half an hour before serving according to sources. I think I might have pushed that half hour, and I really, really would reschedule things so the sauce is done last the next time I make it.

Do not reheat. At least one source says it's okay to freeze, then reheat using a bain-marie, but that's one voice against a legion of others, so we did not save the tiny bit of leftovers.

If sauce becomes too thick add a teaspoon water. If sauce breaks, add in 1-2 tbsp chilled cream and stir vigorously. Other sources say to add in another egg yolk if it breaks.

Serving suggestion: