A bit challenging. I'm an experienced cook, and I still struggled with this one. I love, love bearnaise sauce, and wanted to try it from scratch for a change for Easter dinner. Takes a long time to prep, which I knew going in. But here's where I flubbed up; I have a god-awful electric stovetop, so I struggle sometimes with cooking techniques that are very temperature sensitive. I was skeptical about putting my stainless steel mixing bowl on an electric burner, so I decided to use a double boiler. All was well until the "stir for 8-10 minutes" part near the end. It took only 30 seconds for the sauce to thicken and I wasn't prepared. When the sauce was finished, it was beautiful and velvety for a minute. However, it was much too vinegary for me and had gotten too thick, and I decided that I needed to "water it down" a little, which I did by adding more butter. The taste was fabulous, texture was great, and I thought I had won, but after sitting on the stovetop for two minutes, it separated and curdled. I could not rescue it. So, my advice to you is...if you don't have a really good grasp on emulsification, don't try to veer from Chef John's directions at all. My fault entirely, but hopefully I'll spare someone else the disappointment.
Worked perfectly! Best steak sauce I've ever had!
I made this on Christmas Day to go with our meat and asparagus. It was a total hit. We didn't change anything!
So flavourful! Although I followed the recipe to the letter my sauce broke (did not combine). But No worries. I just stirred in a tblsp of cream. All was fine!
OMG! Great finish my review sorry for the double post. Chef John I love your recipes!!! I still have yet to perfect your hollandaise sauce. I use the blender method which you may chastise me appropriately (especially since my grandfather and father where both master chefs) ..
I had a good deal of tarragon in my herb garden and wanted to use it. This , Chef John, is perfect! We loved it. Next time I have too much tarragon in the garden, I’ll be doing this Bernaise. Thanks!
So my mom mentioned a bearnaise sauce that she tried so I thought that I would give it a shot for Christmas this year. I have to say that it was pretty easy overall, albeit somewhat time consuming with the reduction. But it was delicious and my mom said that it tasted like she remembered. So very good.
This is so easy and incredible. It takes a lot of fresh tarragon but is worth purchasing to create this beautiful sauce.
I didnt have any capers but that was the only change I made. My husband was in heaven with this sauce over his steak. Absolutely delicious. Thank-you.
