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Bearnaise
3 tablespoons butter 6 raw egg yolks 2 shallots 2 tablespoons chervil vinegar 5 peppers 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grates nutmeg 12 tarragon leaves chopped fine 1 teaspoon meat glaze Chop the shallots, cook in vinegar with the crushed peppers; reduce until nearly dry, then cool. Rub into it the egg yolks, beating sharply; then work into it gradually the butter, seasonings, and tarragon leaves. Cook over boiling water, beat briskly; add the meat glaze, drain and serve at once.
A béarnaise built in the old French manner, with the reduction made first and the yolks worked in cold. The proportions are unusual by modern standards and the wording assumes a professional kitchen.
- The hinge: heat controlEverything depends on keeping the yolks below the point where they scramble. Set the bowl over barely simmering water, not a hard boil, and pull it off the heat the moment it thickens to coating consistency – roughly 150–160F. If it looks grainy at the edges, it has gone too far.
- "5 peppers"This means five peppercorns, crushed, not five chili peppers. They go into the vinegar reduction and are strained out later.
- "Drain"Read this as strain. The finished sauce is passed through a fine sieve to remove the shallot and crushed peppercorns; the chopped tarragon is often stirred back in afterwards.
- Butter proportionThree tablespoons of butter to six yolks is far leaner than modern béarnaise, which runs closer to a stick and a half of butter to three or four yolks. As written this sets up almost like a savory custard rather than a pourable sauce. Adding butter gradually, well past the stated amount, gives the familiar texture.
- Meat glazeGlace de viande – veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A teaspoon of demi-glace, or commercial glace concentrate, does the same work. It is optional, though it is what gives this version its darker savor.
- Chervil vinegarA vinegar steeped with chervil; herb vinegars of this kind were made at home and also sold. Substitute plain white wine vinegar plus a few chervil sprigs in the reduction, or simply use tarragon vinegar.
- Shallots and the reduction"Reduce until nearly dry" is literal: the pan should hold damp shallot, not liquid. Cool it before the yolks go in or they will begin to set on contact.
- YieldAbout two-thirds of a cup as written, enough for four to six portions of grilled fish or steak. It does not reheat; make it at the last minute.
- Raw-egg noteThe sauce never gets very hot, so use pasteurized yolks if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young, or immune-compromised.
B he the Pavillon Henri IV at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the 1830s or 1840s, the name nodding to Béarn, Henri IV's home region, rather than to any Béarnais cooking tradition – a piece of restaurant branding that stuck. Its appearance in a flour company's cook book, filed under Fish, shows how thoroughly French sauce work had entered American middle-class cookery by the early twentieth century. The recipe calls for chervil vinegar and meat glaze, both once ordinary grocery or larder items and both now largely gone from home kitchens.