Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

béarnaise sauce

 
Dictionary: béar·naise sauce   (bâr-nāz', bā'är-, -ər-) pronunciation
 
n.

A sauce of butter and egg yolks that is flavored with vinegar, wine, shallots, tarragon, and chervil.

[French béarnaise, feminine of béarnais, of Béarn.]


Search unanswered questions...
Enter a word or phrase...
All Community Q&A Reference topics
Food and Nutrition: béarnaise sauce
 

A thick French sauce made with egg yolk, butter, wine vinegar or white wine, and chopped shallots, named after Béarn in south west France.

 
Wikipedia: Bearnaise sauce
Top
Béarnaise sauce

Béarnaise sauce (French: Sauce béarnaise) IPA: [be.aʁ.nɛz] [1] is a sauce made of clarified butter and egg yolks flavored with tarragon and shallots, with chervil and tarragon simmered in vinegar to make a reduction. "A Béarnaise sauce is simply an egg yolk, a shallot, a little tarragon vinegar, and butter, but it takes years of practice for the result to be perfect," wrote the restaurateur Fernand Point (1897-1955) in Ma Gastronomie. It is a traditional sauce for steak.[2]

Contents

History

The sauce was likely first made by the chef Collinet, the inventor of puffed potatoes (pommes de terre soufflées) and served at the 1836 opening of "Le Pavillon Henri IV", a restaurant at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, not far from Paris. Evidence for this is reinforced by the fact that the restaurant was named for King Henry IV, a gourmet himself, who was born in the former province of Béarn.

The sauce has appeared on US restaurant menus since 1882,[3] if not earlier.

Preparation

Like Hollandaise sauce, Béarnaise sauce is an emulsion of butter in egg yolks. The difference is only in their flavoring: Béarnaise uses a reduction of vinegar and tarragon, while Hollandaise uses lemon juice. Such emulsions require some practice to prepare properly. The prime dangers are curdling the egg yolk mixture through excessive heat, and separation of the emulsion by rushing the addition of clarified butter. The ingredient list for beurre blanc sauce, another closely related emulsion, differs from Béarnaise sauce only by the lack of tarragon and egg yolks.

Variations of the recipe may call for using red wine vinegar, complementing vinegar with a white wine, using regular (solid, non-clarified) butter or replacing chervil with parsley [4].

Misspellings and misusages

Béarnaise sauce is frequently (and erroneously) referred to as Bernaise sauce, (even by francophones), or Bernoise sauce, or even Bernese sauce[citation needed]. The latter three names mean pertaining to Berne, the capital city of Switzerland, in no way connected with this sauce or its origins.

Sometimes erroneously pronounced "Bayonnaise"[citation needed].

References

  1. ^ w:wiktionary:fr:béarnais
  2. ^ Julia Child (1961), Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Alfred A. Knopf
  3. ^ "Jas. II. Breslin & Bro's. Hotel," Brighton Beach, NY, menu dated June 15, 1882: "Sirloin Steak, ... à la Béarnaise."
  4. ^ What is the proper way to make a Béarnaise Sauce?

External links


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food and Nutrition. A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition. Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2005 by A. E. Bender and D. A. Bender. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Bearnaise sauce" Read more