What I Ate For Dinner

Béarnaise sauce could be considered a "daughter" to the "mother sauce" Hollandaise. Both feature egg yolks and butter, but béarnaise is considered the derivative daughter sauce because it is adulterated with vinegar, tarragon and shallot, thereby breaking from motherly tradition and becoming a renegade condiment that is actually interesting. Apropos of lexicon, however, I must mention that, for me, béarnaise has a more vixenly quality that seems to fall outside of the placid and inert kinship appellations "mother" and "daughter." I think of it as more of a mistress to the solid but stolid, "well-respected-sauce-about-town" hollandaise. Sure, slather some H-sauce on the 'ole Eggs Benedict, and you've got a $12.99 brunch entrée, but you'll find that béarnaise packs its bags with so much more intrigue, danger and allure that you'll have a hard time maintaining interest in brunch fare. So don't tell your cardiologist, or your brunch buddies (with whom you are, most likely, getting fleeced, if you're the type to go out to brunch); this siren of a sauce likes you all to herself.

Béarnaise usually shows up on grilled beef, so tonight, I'm doing a strip steak on the grill, which I serve with lightly fried potatoes and a salad of fresh greens. Steak grillery is pretty easy. Throw it on, turn it, yank it off. Like a record. I prefer to treat steak almost like sashimi and just carve off small, nearly raw slivers from the mother lode. La méthode de Baron, shall we say?

For the sauce, start by sautéing shallots and tarragon in olive oil in a medium saucepan. As the shallots get some color and turn translucent, season with salt and pepper and add enough white wine vinegar to coat the bottom of the sauce pan. Reduce until there is just enough vinegar in the pan to form a small puddle when the pan is tilted sideways; to put it another way, reduce until there's about a tablespoon or so vinegar left and the shallots have gotten a good soaking. Kill the heat and allow the pan to cool. This is crucial, since you don't want to wind up with scrambled eggs. Again, this ain't brunch.

As the saucepan cools, beat two egg yolks in a bowl with a little bit of water (two or three tablespoons, I'd guess). Beat with a whisk until foamy on top, and then pour the egg into the cool saucepan.

On the lowest possible heat, beat the eggs, shallots etc. on the stove constantly until the eggs thicken. Do not, under any circumstances, stop beating them before they thicken, or they will scramble and you'll be at brunch. Which would suck. On my stove, it took about a minute for the eggs to thicken, although yours may be different. If you have trouble moderating the temperature, or you have an intense (if unstated) fear of failure, hedge your bet and remove the saucepan from the heat from time to time. A few moments on, then a few moments off. All the while whisking, of course. This is a sort of sissy way to do it, but it works.

Once the eggs come together and thicken, taste the sauce. I usually add more tarragon at this point, and re-season with salt and pepper. If you want more sharp acidity than the vinegar has already given you, then you can squeeze some citrus juice into the sauce now, too. All seasoned up? Now throw in a few hunks of butter. If the butter is at room temp to begin with, then it'll melt in easier. At any rate, set the heat to the lowest setting and stir the butter in until it's melted. Taste. If you want more body, go for more butter. Serve immediately.

As for the potatoes: traditionally, a steak like this cries out for steak frites. Well, turns out they're kind of a hassle. I want to do them for the blog sometime, but for tonight, we have a low-oil, low-stink alternative. Cube up some potato and blanch them in ice water. Then slice the cubes thinly so you have little tiles of potato. Then fry those up, being careful not to crowd them, in about an inch of oil. Yank 'em when golden brown, salt 'em, and y'er ready to rock.