Homemade béarnaise sauce tastes great, but may be a little daunting to make. It is great fun to put homemade béarnaise sauce on the table, because there is no doubt that it is home-made. This recipe should be enough for 4 people, but it tends to go a lot of it, so I usually double it.
3 room temperature egg yolks
150 grams of butter
2 teaspoons dried tarragon
4 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 finely chopped shallot
Salt and pepper
Let the butter melt slowly on low heat in a small saucepan without stirring. For the sauce, we will only use clarified butter, which is the transparent shiny part that remains on top.
Put a small blob of butter (not the butter we managed in the previous point) in another (small) pan. Add the shallots and simmer until the onions are shiny. Add water, white wine vinegar and tarragon and let it boil to half the amount.
You now have three components to mix, the egg yolks, the shallot, vinegar and tarragon mixture and clarified butter.
The safest way to do this is to mix the components over a water bath. Find a pot that is large enough for the pot with the shallot, vinegar and tarragon mixture to fit in and fill it with hot water. Put the small pot up. Add the egg yolks and mix well.
Carefully add a little and a little of the clarified butter while stirring well (be careful not to add the milk substances on the bottom).
Season with salt and pepper. If you want a thinner sauce, you can stir in a few extra spoons of water at the end. Garnish with some fresh tarragon.
