Possibly My Favorite Sauce(s)

Part 1 of a Fun & Delicious Series

Welcome back friend!

Today begins the start of a fun series on my favorite sauces in the culinary world 🙌

There’s no way to list every one of my favorite sauces but the following series is intended to bring some of my favorites that will make your life as a homecook more tasty and delicious.

We will span different parts of the globe but the first two take me back to where I started as a young cook.

France 🇫🇷

France is widely heralded as the champion cuisine of culinary techniques including saucework.

You’ll remember I covered the hallowed ‘Mother Sauces’ previously. Today I’m taking one of the sauces and changing some of the flavors to create possibly my favorite sauce to serve with beef. 🙌 🤤

Let’s cook!

Béarnaise Sauce 🇫🇷

Since Hollandaise sauce is one of the “wonders of the sauce world”, if you add peppercorns and tarragon to the mix (2 of my favorite things), you have won me over even more.

If you’ve never tried this sauce then I can’t recommend enough that you give this a shot.

Most people think of emulsified sauces as “fancy” and difficult but nothing could be further from the truth; they’re just down right tasty af. The body is luscious, the herbs add a vibrant freshness and the acid from the wine and vinegar balance the sauce to create an addictive sauce that you want to slather any steak with.

Pro Tip: Top your finished steak with fresh crab meat, then drown it with Bearnaise and you have Steak “Oscar Style”. You’ll see this on lots of steakhouse menus “Ribeye Oscar”, “NY Strip Oscar”, etc… it’s one of my favorite surf-and-turf combos.

Ok on to the sauce béarnaise! 🙌

Ingredients

1 large shallot, finely chopped to yield 3 TB

100ml white wine vinegar

125ml white wine

5 sprigs tarragon, leaves separated from stems (save the stems)

10 black peppercorns, lightly crushed with the back of a saute pan or in a mortar

300g unsalted butter

3 egg yolks

1-2TB lemon juice (from 1 whole lemon)

*30g mixed herbs (parsley, chives, chervil), optional but nice

3 TB hot water, optional if needed to thin sauce

Sea salt and crushed black pepper to taste

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Method

1. Add the minced shallot into a saucepan along with the peppercorns, tarragon stems, white wine and vinegar. Place over medium high heat and reduce until the liquid has gone down by about 75%.

2. While the base is reducing, finely chop the tarragon leaves with the other herbs mentioned (is using and set aside).

3. Melt your butter over medium/medium high heat until bubbling. Classically butter is then clarified but as I mentioned in the Mother Sauce substack, this isn’t necessary. Warm/hot melted butter works fine.

4. Strain the shallot-wine reduction by pressing the mix lightly through a strainer to remove the peppercorns and tarragon stalks; reserve 2-3TB of the shallot solids.

5. Setup a pot with 2 inches of simmering water, whisk your egg yolks in a mixing bowl (I like glass) with the strained wine reduction. Place mixing bowl over the pan with simmering water and whisk constantly until the yolk mixture thickens. Turn your heat to low to avoid scrambling the yolks

6. Once the yolk mixture leaves a trail that look like ribbons remove from the heat and whisk in the hot melted butter. If the mixture gets too thick before the butter has all been incorporated, add a dash of hot water and continue whisking in the remaining butter. Refer back to the Mother Sauces substack for a video of whisking the yolks and butter

7. To finish the sauce add the herbs, 2 TB of the reserved shallots from the reduction, add a squeeze of lemon juice (1-2 TB) then season the bearnaise with salt and pepper.

8. Serve in a bowl for people to spoon over the steak of your choice… feel free to also dunk any left overs in the sauce for a trip to béarnaise Valhalla!

Viola 🙌

If you give this a go a) you won’t be disappointed b) your friends and family will love you and c) you’ll see why this is probably my favorite sauce of all time 🤝