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Easy Bearnaise Sauce

5 from 1 vote
Print Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 2 minutes
Course Sauce

Equipment

  • 1 Hand infuser
  • 1 Wire mesh strainer

Ingredients
  

Infused vinegar

  • 1.5 TBSP White wine
  • 1.5 TBSP White wine vinegar
  • 1 shallot, finely sliced
  • 2 TSP dried Tarragon

Bearnaise Sauce

  • 2 Egg yolks
  • 3/4 C Ghee (or 1 stick of butter)
  • 1.5 TSP Infused vinegar
  • 1 TSP dried tarragon
  • 1/2 TSP Cherval (I used fresh thyme)

Instructions
 

Infuse the vinegar

  • Place all the ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring to simmer. Simmer for at least two minutes while stirring until it is reduced by half.
  • Let cool for at least ten minutes, then strain out the vinegar and dispose of the solids. You should have about 1.5 TBSP.

Bearnaise Sauce

  • Place the ghee in a micro-wave mug (not plastic!), and heat at medium for one minute.
    If using butter instead of ghee, cut one stick up into small pieces and melt in 20-second increments for about 90 seconds. Let it sit for about 30 seconds, and milk solids will settle in the bottom. The part that's on top is (more or less) clarified butter,and that's what you'll use to make the sauce. Pour the top part into a measuring cup and discard the solids. The milk solids have already been removed from the ghee.
  • While ghee is heating, add two egg yolks to a tall coffee mug and add the infused vinegar.
  • With the hand-infuser, give the yolks and vinegar mixture a whiz to mix them up. Then, with the infuser running, slowly pour the ghee into yolks. Take at least a couple of minutes to pour all the ghee into the yolk mixture, moving the infuser up and down to make sure it's all mixed.
  • The result will be quite thick. You may want to thin it with a TBSP of water at a time. Remember, you can make a thick sauce thinner, but can't make a thin sauce thicker! I just took the thick sauce with no thinning.
  • At the end, stir the herbs into the sauce, and you're good to go.

Notes

You can't reheat this, since it will separate.  What you could do is prepare this in advance and store it in a thermos, where it should stay warm for at least and hour.
I didn't have fresh tarragon, so I used the dried herbs I had on hand.  I substituted thyme for chervil since I did have that fresh.
I used a cappuccino coffee cup to do the infusion.  It's important that your hand infuser make good contact with the bottom of whatever you use to do the infusion so that you create a vortex of the ingredients, making the infusion.
I wound up with enough sauce for four fillets.  Alas, it won't store.
This recipe is taken more or less verbatim from the RecipeTinEats website.  You can, of course, use the same techniques to make Hollandaise sauce.