Home › Invalid Cookery › Bearnaise Sauce
Bearnaise Sauce
4 tablespoons shortening 4 egg yolks 1/2 teaspoon salt Pepper 1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar 1 teaspoon each onion juice and chopped parsley Beat egg yolks, salt and pepper in top of double boiler until light. Cream the shortening till smooth, add a third of it at a time to the beaten egg yolks, beating until smooth. Add vinegar and onion juice. Cook over hot water for three minutes, beating constantly with egg beater. Remove from fire, add chopped parsley and serve with liver immediately.
A stripped-down b u00e9arnaise built for an invalid tray: no wine reduction, no clarified butter, and thickened almost entirely by the yolks. The whole thing hinges on keeping the water below a simmer.
- Heat controlThe water in the lower pan should be hot but not boiling, around 180F. If it boils, the yolks will scramble into grains no amount of beating will smooth out. Pull the pan off the heat the moment the sauce coats the beater in a ribbon.
- Shortening, not butterThe recipe calls for shortening rather than butter; butter substitutes were often recommended in this period as blander and easier to digest, though the recipe itself gives no reason. It works, but it sets firm and tastes of nothing; an equal quantity of softened unsalted butter gives the sauce the flavour the name implies.
- Onion juiceGrate half a small onion on a fine rasp and press the pulp in a sieve, or grate it straight into the bowl and strain. A small piece of onion will yield the teaspoon called for.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and worth keeping for exactly this kind of sauce. If you have none, use white wine vinegar with a few crushed tarragon leaves steeped in it for half an hour, or add a pinch of dried tarragon with the parsley.
- Egg safetyThree minutes over hot water will not reliably bring the yolks to 160F. Use pasteurized eggs, or hold the sauce over the heat until it visibly thickens and coats a spoon.
- Rescuing a split sauceIf it breaks, take it off the heat immediately and beat in a teaspoon of cold water, or start a fresh yolk in a clean bowl and dribble the broken sauce into it.
- Yield and servingAbout two-thirds of a cup, enough for four servings of liver or four poached eggs. It will not hold or reheat; make it while the liver rests and serve at once, as the recipe insists.