Pure Butter Sauce:

1 tbsp water (or wine, or lemon juice, or any other liquid you might happen to like)
100g butter (more, if you like)

Cut the butter into cubes of a medium sice and don’t fuss about how big or small you need to cut them, just make sure your butter is nice and cold. Put the water into a saucepan and set it on lowish heat. Drop half of the butter into the pan and start to whisk gently. This takes a bit of skill, but the idea is to keep the butter under emulsion, so you should never see it separate at all. It is easiest to do if you keeep taking it off the heat, then putting it on again, just to keep the emulsion going. The sauce doesn’t need to be warm at all, as long as all the butter has melted and the thing is creamy, you’ll be fine. So continue to add the butter and whisk the sauce until you have used up all the butter. Now this point is the most dangerous, because if your pot has a lot of heat left in it, it can turn the sauce, so make sure to take it off the heat early.

All this sounds a lot more complicated than it really is so give it a try. The proportions are of no consequence whatsoever, as long as you don’t drown the butter, you can use more wine or water and the amount of butter you can add is endless! Salt and pepper your thing and pour it over a steamed fish. Yummy!

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Herb Lemon Beurre Blanc

For the beurre blanc base:
½ tbsp butter
3 shallots, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
75ml white wine
10ml champagne vinegar
1 turn of white pepper
50ml whipping cream
1 level tbsp mascarpone
50ml fish stock

To finish the sauce:
30ml beurre blanc base
20g butter, cut into 4 cubes
1 tsp chopped lemon peel
2 tsp chopped fresh herbs

Heat the butter in a small saucepan and fry the shallots and garlic for a minute or two, but take care not to burn it. Add the white wine and champagne vinegar and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer down to almost nothing. Now add the fish stock and bring back to the boil. Turn off the heat and gently pour some of this base into the cream to temper it. This is very important, because your base is acidic and if you don’t treat the cream gently, it will split. Pour back into the saucepan and bring back to a gently simmer. Add the mascarpone and reduce by about half, or until you have a nice thick sauce. This base will keep in the chiller and it freezes well.

Just before serving, reheat as much beurre blanc base as you will need. Over gentle heat, start whisking the base, then drop the butter into it and keep whisking until the butter and sauce have emulsified completely. You are not going to get a super hot sauce, because too much heat will break the emulsion. Add the lemon and herbs and serve.

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Basil Beurre Blanc

For the basil beurre blanc:
5 shallots, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
1 whole sprig fresh basil
5 black and 5 white peppercorns, crushed
100ml white wine
100ml white wine vinegar
1 tub crème fraîche
15g butter for frying

To finish the sauce:
30ml beurre blanc base
4 cubes butter
1 tsp chopped basil

Fry the shallots and garlic in the 15g of butter until soft, but not brown. Add the crushed peppercorns and the basil and continue to fry for a few seconds. Add the wine and vinegar and simmer until almost dry, then add the double cream. Allow to infuse for a few minutes, then strain through a fine sieve. Just before serving, heat up the reduction and whisk in the cubed butter. Adjust the seasoning.

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