Beurre Blanc

Until the 1970s, the most famous butter sauce, beurre blanc, was an obscure regional sauce made in Brittany and in a few famous restaurants in Paris. It was considered nearly impossible to make and was said to require an almost mythical action of the wrist to produce the creamy, buttery sauce with only butter as the emulsifier. Any restaurant that tried to pass off an egg yolk sauce as a beurre blanc received bad press. But in the late 1960s, a few inventive chefs discovered that beurre blanc required no magic after all, just care not to let the sauce boil and constant whisking until all the butter was incorporated. It became the darling of nouvelle cuisine chefs and soon appeared flavored with every conceivable herb or spice. When red wine was added, it was labeled beurre rouge, a pour substitute for a bordelaise sauce.