MODERN BÉARNAISE
Makes 1 cup
We had a bit of fun creating this one. It’s a classic béarnaise, but I wanted it to be a bit lighter than the sauce usually is. Enter Ferran Adrià, culinary genius and pusher of boundaries. In the nineties he started using cream guns to aerate sauces and create foams. I had grown up with my father making his own soda water and one of my early restaurant experiences was gassing cream for Irish coffees, so it seemed that a cream gun was a very good way of getting a full-flavoured béarnaise with a wonderful lightness. It seemed to change the sauce for the better, I think. It has since become a bit of a signature. Thank you Ferran, for that one.
You’ll need a 1 litre (35 fl oz/4 cup) heat-sensitive cream siphon and 2 gas cartridges for this recipe. If you don’t have one, simply serve the sauce as is.
2 sprigs tarragon, plus 2 tablespoons chopped tarragon extra
2 French shallots (eschalots), sliced
5 black peppercorns
125 ml (4 fl oz/ ½ cup) dry white wine
125 ml (4 fl oz/ ½ cup) tarragon vinegar
3 egg yolks
250 g (9 oz) unsalted butter, cubed, & at room temperature
Place the tarragon, shallot, peppercorns, wine and vinegar in a saucepan over medium–high heat and cook until reduced to 80 ml (2½ fl oz/1/3 cup).
Place the egg yolks in a heatproof bowl that sits comfortably over a saucepan. Strain the tarragon reduction and discard the solids.
Pour the reduced liquid over the egg yolks, whisking to incorporate. Place the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water and start whisking. The mixture will thicken and double or triple in size as it approaches the point at which it is fully cooked.
Once the sauce has reached this point, start adding 3–4 cubes of butter at a time, whisking to incorporate after each addition.
When all the butter is incorporated, remove the bowl from the heat, pour the sauce into the cream siphon and screw on the lid. Screw in one cartridge, at a time, to aerate the sauce, then shake vigorously.
Place the siphon in a warm water bath until ready to serve.
To serve, pump the sauce from the siphon and stir through the chopped tarragon.