A thinner béarnaise?
I've been using Julia Child's béarnaise recipe---2 tbl reduction, 3 egg
yolks, 4 oz clarified butter---, which produces a very thick sauce. Is
this just how it's supposed to be, or is there a non-heretic way of
making it thinner?
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Every sauce is different in viscosity. To test the 'perfect' viscosity, the classic test for it is to see if it coats the back of a spoon smoothly and evenly. To solve your problem, I will suggest that you thin it with water or stock; and don`t use butter or oil.
The thickness is coming from the ratio of oil to water. Like mayonnaise, bearnaise is an oil-in-water emulsion, and will get thinner the more water is in it. (Consider the relative thickness of moist sand and mud; the butter in the bearnaise is like the sand.) Adding a bit of hot water will work well to thin it, but do so a bit at a time, stirring well afterwards, as a little bit of water will go a long way.
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