Does anyone know how to make a bearnaise sauce?

[oreoaddict]

Hi everyone.

I'm cooking sirloin steak for dp and I tonight and I really want to make my own bearnaise sauce as it's his favourite.

My kitchen is currently full of dirty pots, pans and egg shells I'm on my 3rd attempt and I can't understand what i'm doing wrong. I'm following a BBC Food recipe, but it keeps coming out runny and it wont thicken. Not to mention that it tastes rank!

Has anyone got a tried and tested, can't fail, recipe? Really don't want to be defeated on this!!

Thanks.

i don't bother with the reduction to start, and think of it as hot mayo!

oh and I use lemon juice instead of white wine or cider vinegar

so, juice/vinegar (1 tbs per egg yolk) into a glass bowl on top of a pan of boiling water....water must not touch the bowl. Stir like mad with a small whisk....never stop it moving.

oh and before you start have a bowl of cold water ready to dunk the sauce bowl into if there is any hint of splitting

as it begins to warm drop in 3 or 4 cubes of butter....about 3-4 oz per egg yolk....as the last cube starts to melt drop in more...keep whisking/stirring till all the butter is gone and it will start to thicken.

Add chopped tarragon at the end.

Good luck.

Ahhhhh, thanks Cat!

I think i'm gonna need more eggs I was melting the butter beforehand. Do you think that's where I was going wrong? The recipe I had was 250g of butter and 2 egg yolks. I thought that sounded like a hell of a lot of butter. It just tasted like butter and vinegar when I 'made it'. How long did you wisk before it started to thicken? I used a blender. Is that not a good idea either?

isn't it melted butter for hollandaise?? I do get a bit muddled with all these sauces!

I'd whisk by hand....essentially it's hot mayo as I said, and it's the heat of the water melting the butter AND thickening the egg yolks, like a custard. ...a blender would froth it all up and make it too whippy I'd imagine.

What was going wrong....was it going scrambly and oily? Cos that is too much heat. ...definitely using cold butter in cubes helps to slow down the heat and its effect on the yolks.

Keep stirring!

That's exactly how it went. All frothy and just horrible actually. Dp's just walked in with a jar of the stuff! Oh ye of little faith. Hmmmm, should I be insulted?

Oh and I take it you can't really heat it up later. All these were just test runs really, albeit very unsuccessful ones.

Leave the bastard!!

I generally do it before I do the steak...when it is as thick as I want I stand it in a bowl of cold water and stir it to stop it going too far and then leave it over the hot water on the side...it will thicken a little as it cools, but if you leave it over the hot water it shouldn't set or scramble.

If you use lemon juice and chives it is AMAZING on salmon!

Just to let you know, I had to abort the plan as I really had run out of eggs and so had the shop. So, instead I made a tarragon butter, which was actually really nice.

Thanks for your tips though. I feel armed and ready for the next time. I'll definitely give it a go with salmon. I bet it's nice with dill actually. It's certainly cheaper to go with salmon at the minute. Tesco's are selling whole ones for £10!!