I laughed out loud when a friend asked me: “You actually shot a hand-made béarnaise *while* you were making it?”, sounding quite surprised. I never thought about it like that. I guess it can be tricky, with all the whisking going on, but it’s doable. “Well, are there ways to do this without using your hands?“, I asked her. “Yeah“, she said, “toss it in a blender“.

A blender? You’re kidding me? I told her to hush and stop cursing like that. Julia Child must be rolling over in her grave, woman. That seems tantamount to sacrilege! Nope, not for me—I like cooking too much for using shortcuts like that. Putting in some work and actually make an effort to create something exquisite with nothing but your hands is so much more satisfying in the end. 

I couldn’t have pulled it off without a good recipe, though. And this is definitely a good recipe. Tried and true, since I’ve been making it like this for a decade now and my sauce never seems to curdle or split—it just never happened—so I guess this really is a fool-proof recipe that would have done Julia proud.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 tbsp water
3 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 small shallot
2 white peppercorns
2 egg yolks
1 small bay leaf
5 oz butter (140 gr)
tarragon
chervil
Worcestershire sauce
cayenne
pepper
salt



Directions:

Finely mince a shallot.

Transfer the shallot to a small sauce pan and pour 3 1/2 tbsp water and 3 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar in there. Add a small bay leaf, 2 smashed up white peppercorns and bring the liquid to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 8 to 10 minutes, until the liquid cooked down to 1/4 of what you started with.

Put two really fresh egg yolks in a medium-sized and heat-proof bowl.

 

I don’t even own a double boiler, so I’m making this sauce au bain marie. Meaning that I grab a pan big enough to hold the bowl I’m using, yet small enough to make sure it fits snugly over the pan. Fill it with enough water to get the steam going but not so much that it will reach the bowl holding the eggs. Bring the water to a boil.

Use another pan to melt the butter, the butter needs to be liquefied but can’t be too hot.

After 10 minutes the vinegar water will have cooked down. Discard the bay leaf and let it cool off for a minute or 2 before adding the mix to the yolks.

Remove the pan from the stove and place the bowl with the yolks over the pan containing the hot water.

Now start whisking. And whisk constantly. Soon the yolk mixture will start to thicken.

That’s your cue to start adding melted butter. Drizzle it in very slowly, while continuing to whisk.

Keep going until all the butter is incorporated.

Now I couldn’t get my hands on fresh tarragon, so I had to use dried herbs. It works beautifully. Add the tarragon and chervil—I tend to go easy on the herbs, but use as much as you like.

Season the sauce with salt, pepper, a good pinch of cayenne and my secret ingredient: a few drops of Worcestershire sauce.

That’s all there is to making one of the most richest sauces ever.

Classic and traditional sauces like this take your meal from mundane to magical in the blink of an eye. This is a light, fresh, flavorful and subtle sauce. Serve it with a good steak, a perfect roast beef or even grilled chicken and you’ll have heaven on a plate. And in your mouth.