HOLLANDAISE & BÉARNAISE

HOLLANDAISE AND BÉARNAISE ARE WARM, emulsified sauces made with egg yolk. Essentially, these sauces are a warm mayonnaise in which egg yolk and a small amount of liquid emulsify a large amount of fat, typically butter. The only difference between hollandaise and Béarnaise is the acid used to flavor and help emulsify them. Hollandaise is made with lemon juice, and Béarnaise is made with a reduction of vinegar, white wine, and herbs. Béarnaise is considered a more complicated sauce, but in reality the reduction is easy to prepare and can be done ahead of time.

Because they are warm, these sauces are more challenging to make than mayonnaise. Our goal was to create a foolproof master recipe that would produce delicious sauces. Too often these sauces separate, or break, and the cook must start over with fresh egg yolks and more butter. We wanted to make sure that this would not happen.

Classic hollandaise and Béarnaise are prepared in the following manner: the egg yolk and liquid flavorings are gently heated, then butter (either melted or clarified) is slowly incorporated. (Clarified butter is melted butter that has had its water gently cooked off and its milk solids skimmed off with a spoon.) Repeated tests with this classic method showed that creating a warm, stable emulsion sauce by hand takes care and patience. Although no single step is complicated, it is a slow process. The yolks can scramble (we found that heating them in a double boiler reduced but did not eliminate this risk), or the sauce can break when butter is added too quickly.

When we got the sauce right, it was divine, with an incredibly light, almost ethereal consistency. Some sources suggest beating melted butter into warmed egg yolks. Other recipes take an extra step and create a sabayon by whisking the egg yolks and some liquid into a light, airy foam. The latter method was key to achieving a superior texture, but occasionally something went wrong.

At this point in our testing, we decided to shift gears and test making these sauces in a blender. Many sources claim that the blender makes foolproof hollandaise and Béarnaise that is as good as the best traditional versions. After testing a number of blender recipes, we concluded that blender sauces are consistently very good. While they lack the sublime airy texture of the best handmade sauces, the blender saves time, is easy is to use, and, with its incredible centrifugal power, produces a more stable, firm sauce that home cooks will find easier to manage. A handmade sauce may be slightly better, but the moderate risk that the sauce will break, coupled with the added work that would then be necessary, led us to conclude that the blender is the best place for home cooks to make these sauces.

Blender hollandaise is simple enough to prepare. The egg yolks and lemon juice are briefly blended. Adding a little water helps keep the sauce from becoming overly thick, a common occurrence with many blender recipes that we tested. We found that a little salt and cayenne pepper is needed for flavor. The main area of testing focused on the butter: whether or not to clarify the butter, what the temperature of the butter should be, and how it is best incorporated into the sauce.

When making hollandaise by hand on the stove, we preferred clarified butter. Because butter is whisked into the sabayon, which is already light and airy, the addition of more water from nonclarified butter (whole melted butter contains about 20 percent water) thins the sauce too much; clarified butter, being pure fat, makes for a thicker, smoother sauce. The opposite proved true when making blender hollandaise, where the processed yolks are not as airy. Here the water in the whole melted butter is needed to help to thin out the sauce and make it lighter.

We tested adding hot versus warm melted butter to the egg yolks in the blender. Warm butter worked fine but produced an overly cool sauce. Hot butter is preferred. We found that adding the butter slowly, especially at the beginning, ensures a thick and stable emulsion.

We explored how much butter to incorporate. Many recipes tested incorporated 4 ounces of butter into 3 yolks. We tried six ounces and were surprised at how much lighter and airier the sauce was. We then tested eight ounces of butter, and the sauce was perfect. The additional butter created a lighter-textured sauce.

Finally, we tested the addition of the liquid (lemon juice for hollandaise, the reduction for Béarnaise) before and after the butter. When we added the liquid to the yolks in the blender at the beginning of processing, we found that the sauce emulsified more easily. We also concluded that adding the liquid with the yolks early on helps infuse the flavor of the liquid throughout the sauce.

A final note about the reduction used for Béarnaise. Some sources rely on vinegar alone; others on a combination of vinegar and white wine. We found that vinegar alone made a harsh-tasting sauce and preferred equal amounts of dry white wine and tarragon vinegar, with white wine vinegar as our second choice.

In the end, we found that the blender produces great results with very little effort. Yes, the sauce is a bit heavier than a handmade sauce that starts with a sabayon, but a sauce made in the blender is also much more stable and can be prepared more quickly. Knowing you can rely on the outcome and count on it to hold up is a bonus.

Blender sauces do tend to thicken and look as if they may be curdling when being held over heat. (We found it most convenient to simply stick the blender into a pan of hot water off heat.) We discovered that whisking occasionally and adding a tablespoon of water easily brings the sauce back to the desired consistency.