Robuchon! Three months late!

Famously, In Diamonds are Forever, James Bond told Tiffany Case that she must be able "to make Sauce Béarnaise as well as love".

I think she's preparing to chop the tarragon

Bond meant that she should be able to make Sauce Béarnaise as skillfully as she makes love. But that's easy! After all, making love takes only three minutes, so Sauce Béarnaise should be quick and easy too, right?

Well, Joël Robuchon's recipe "Grilled Salmon with Béarnaise Sauce" seemed easy enough.

After all, it only took half a page:

Then I realised that it referred back to the Sauce Béarnaise recipe, which is three pages, albeit with an interesting little historical note about how no one knows where the sauce originated.

The principle behind the sauce is that you combine vinegar, shallots, tarragon, and black pepper, reduce, then whisk into egg yolk in a bain-marie, and incorporate clarified butter, like making a mayonnaise. See, easy! Along the way, there are helpful tips such as this: 'In the end, if you trace a curve in the sauce with a whisk, you should be able to see the bottom of the pot' (just like making love: 'In the end, if you ******* a ****** in the **** with a *******, you should be able to see the bottom of the ******').

I'm not sure I really succeeded with the sauce. I clarified the butter OK:

And I reduced down the shallots, vinegar, tarragon, and pepper with finesse:

And I separated out the egg yolks fine:

Then it's all a blur. The next photo is of the finished sauce:

Robuchon says you should strain it; this sauce was far too thick to go through any strainer. Maybe it was 'broken' (Robuchon's term, not mine), meaning that 'its components separate instead of staying together in a uniform emulsion'. I think mine was on the brink of breaking.

The rest of the meal was uneventful. We had potatoes:

And grilled salmon:

 And spinach. Note to self: wet spinach and crispy potatoes should not be put on the same plate!

Béarnaise is good with steaks too. Maybe one day I'll make it again to go with grilled steaks. We'll probably end up having Béarnaise once or twice a year (INSERT JOKE HERE).