Clas­sic Bear­naise Sauce

(serves 6 as an accom­pa­ni­ment, per­haps, to beef fillet)

1 stick/123g unsalt­ed butter
1/4 cup each white wine, white wine/distilled malt vinegar
1 tbsp tar­ragon leaves
2 shal­lots, minced
pinch white pepper
2 large free-range egg yolks
cayenne pepper
salt

4 extra tar­ragon leaves, minced

Make sure you have two saucepans of the same size, or a dou­ble boiler.

Melt the but­ter JUST to melt­ing, don’t brown. Put the melt­ed but­ter in a bowl and wash out the saucepan. In this pan, boil the wine and vine­gar, tar­ragon, shal­lots and pep­per until the liq­uid is reduced by half. Strain this into a bowl and throw away the solids.

Bring two inch­es of water to boil in a saucepan.  Rinse out the one you boiled the wine mix­ture in, and pour the strained wine mix­ture into this sec­ond saucepan. Whisk in the egg yolks, then place this saucepan on top of the one con­tain­ing boil­ing water.

Whisk until the the MOMENT the eggs thick­en. Take off the heat. Put four ice cubes in the boil­ing water and return the saucepan with the sauce in it to the top of the hot water one, whisk­ing in the melt­ed but­ter grad­u­al­ly until thick and yel­low and all the but­ter is used up. If at any time the sauce seems to be break­ing up, sim­ply remove from the hot bot­tom saucepan and whisk till smooth.

When all the but­ter is incor­po­rat­ed, add a dash of cayenne pep­per and salt to taste.  Stir in the extra tar­ragon leaves and serve hot.