Béarnaise Sauce

Combine ingredients

Place 1 cup tarragon, shallots, and peppercorns in a saucepan. Pour in the white wine vinegar, white wine and water.

Simmer and reduce

Place over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer. Stir. Reduce heat to medium-low to maintain a gentle simmer and reduce liquid to about 3 tablespoons, 20 to 30 minutes.

Strain reduction

Remove from heat. Strain into a bowl through a fine mesh strainer, pressing vegetable herb mixture to extract as much liquid as possible.

Mash herbs and capers

Place 1/4 cup chopped tarragon and capers in a mortar. Mash with pestle about one minute.

Add butter

Add 1 tablespoon cold butter. Mash and pound with pestle until ingredients are thoroughly combined in a solid mass.

Chill

Transfer to a piece of plastic wrap. Wrap and chill in the refrigerator.

Combine egg yolks and reduction

Place egg yolks in a stainless steel, flameproof mixing bowl. Add 3 tablespoons of the tarragon shallot reduction. Whisk together.

Add butter and heat

Add cold butter cubes. Place bowl over low-medium heat whisking constantly until sauce thickens, holding the bowl with a kitchen towel.

Whisk until thick

After butter melts, continue whisking. Mixture will turn a lighter yellow color after 8 to 10 minutes. When mixture is nice and thick, reduce heat to low.

Add compound butter

Stir in the compound butter broken into chunks. Continue whisking.

Season and serve

Remove from heat. Season with salt, cayenne pepper and black pepper.