Asparagus with Lemon and Tarragon Hollandaise (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between hollandaise and bearnaise? ›

It's what happens next that sets them apart: Hollandaise gets its acidity from lemon juice (sometimes vinegar) and is usually seasoned with salt, white pepper, and cayenne pepper. Béarnaise, meanwhile, builds upon hollandaise with white wine vinegar, shallots, tarragon, and other fresh herbs.

What do I do if my hollandaise sauce is too lemony? You can either start again, or try adding another egg yolk and a bit more melted butter.

Irresistibly creamy, buttery, and rich, Béarnaise combines an herby, slightly acidic reduction of white wine, vinegar, shallots, fresh tarragon, and lemon juice with hollandaise to make a luscious sauce for spooning over grilled steak, chicken, fish, or vegetables.

It is regarded as a "child" of hollandaise sauce. The difference is only in the flavoring: béarnaise uses shallot, black pepper, and tarragon, while hollandaise uses white pepper or a pinch of cayenne. The sauce's name derives from the province of Béarn, France. It is a traditional sauce for steak.

The five mother sauces are hollandaise, tomato (sauce tomat), bechamel, Espagnole, and veloute. French chef Auguste Escoffier identified the five mother sauces, forever associating them with French cuisine. However, mother sauces are relevant in all modern cooking practices.

Hollandaise Sauce

One common hollandaise mistake is overcooking the egg yolks, and there's no coming back from that. But the most common problem is that the emulsion breaks, and you see streaks of liquid butter instead of a uniformly creamy sauce.

final sauce is too thick: thin the sauce down with a bit of water or lemon juice. Thick sauces can easily split; thinning them down with a bit of liquid will help to stabilize the emulsion. sauce tastes eggy: this can mean the sabayon was not cooked enough or not enough butter was added to the sabayon.

The second cause is either adding too much butter or adding it too quickly. When either of these occur, the sauce will look glossy like icing and pull away from the sides of the bowl, while the butter will float on top of the mixture.

"But there are a lot of ways things can go wrong. If you don't whisk fast enough or pour in your butter too fast it'll turn greasy and broken. Don't cook the eggs enough and it won't thicken properly. If you cook the eggs too much and you'll end up with clumpy, greasy, scrambled eggs.

Why is hollandaise sauce so good? ›

Hollandaise sauce is a rich and creamy sauce that has been a staple in French cuisine for centuries. Made from butter, egg yolks, and lemon juice, Hollandaise sauce has a tangy and buttery flavor that can elevate any dish.

The five French mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato.

You can use bearnaise sauce instead of hollandaise in eggs Benedict and eggs Florentine. This will give the dish a more savoury, herby flavour as opposed to the citrusy flavour in hollandaise sauce. Bearnaise sauce is also wonderful over vegetables. We love it with broccoli!

The five French mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato. Developed in the 19th century by French chef Auguste Escoffier, mother sauces serve as a starting point for a variety of delicious sauces used to complement countless dishes, including veggies, fish, meat, casseroles, and pastas.

Béarnaise sauce is a delicious and creamy classic French sauce that is often made from a reduction of vinegar and wine mixed with shallots, tarragon, and (sometimes) chervil and thickened with egg yolks and butter. It's typically served with meat, fish, eggs, or vegetables.

Specifically, in mayonnaise we have lemon, vegetable oil and egg yolk while in Hollandaise sauce we have vinegar, fresh butter and egg yolk.

Hollandaise is best served warm or at room temperature, and is a pain to reheat (because you have to be so careful not to cook the eggs). Warmer yolks = warmer sauce.