Asparagus with Lemon and Tarragon Hollandaise (2024)

FAQs

What sauce is made from hollandaise with the addition of a tarragon reduction? ›

To make Béarnaise, you start with a reduction of wine, vinegar, shallots, and tarragon. Set it aside while you make the hollandaise, which is a semi-permanent emulsion of egg yolks and clarified butter. Stir the herbal reduction into hollandaise, and voila! You have Béarnaise sauce.

Most of the recipes you find for béarnaise sauce are made with tarragon. The French way is made with two herbs, tarragon, and one that is more difficult to find, chervil (French parsley).

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.

Hollandaise sauce (/hɒlənˈdeɪz/ or /ˈhɒləndeɪz/; French: [ɔlɑ̃dɛz]), meaning Dutch sauce in French, is a mixture of egg yolk, melted butter, and lemon juice (or a white wine or vinegar reduction). It is usually seasoned with salt, and either white pepper or cayenne pepper.

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.

Béarnaise sauce builds on hollandaise with egg yolks, butter, white wine vinegar, shallots, and tarragon.

Fresh tarragon is harder to mimic with a substitution than dried. If the recipe calls for dried tarragon, your options open up a bit. Dried marjoram, oregano, basil, dill, or even rosemary or fennel or anise seed (in a pinch) will work well.

Tarragon substitutes include: Basil Leaves have an aromatic, sweet flavor that blends well with garlic and tomatoes. You can use this ingredient as a tarragon substitute in your pasta, marinara sauce, and minestrone recipes.

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.

Continue whisking until the mixture thickens and reaches a luxurious consistency akin to that of traditional hollandaise. White wine vinegar provides an excellent alternative to lemon juice, but it's worth noting that other citrus options like orange, blood orange, or lime juice can also be used as substitutes.

Why does my hollandaise taste bad? ›

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.

What is Hollandaise Sauce? If you've never experienced the magic of hollandaise sauce, let me attempt to describe it to you. It's a very simple savory sauce made with butter, egg yolk, lemon, and salt. It has a smooth, velvety texture with just the right amount of bright lemon flavor to keep it from being too heavy.

hol·​lan·​daise ˌhä-lən-ˈdāz. : a rich sauce made basically of butter, egg yolks, and lemon juice or vinegar.

hollandaise sauce, one of the classic sauces of French cooking, made of butter, egg yolks, lemon juice, and pepper and usually served on fish, eggs, or vegetables.

Mayonnaise combines egg, acid (vinegar or citrus juice, sometimes both) and oil, while aioli combines egg, garlic and oil. Aioli's texture is a little thicker than glossy mayonnaise. Meanwhile, hollandaise is a warm sauce that uses butter in place of oil.