I’ve always loved eggs Benedict. The richness of the hollandaise with a perfect runny egg, it’s what brunch was invented for. When I started cooking I avoided this dish as I didn’t feel I could cook a good poached egg or make a classic hollandaise. The trick is, both have many variations, just find the one that works for you. Both the methods here are the simplest I know and the ones I just all the time. For this recipe use the freshest eggs you can get. If they’ve been sat in the cupboard for a week don’t bother.
Serves: 1
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Ingredients
- 3 fresh eggs (2 for pouching and one yolk for the hollandaise)
- 1 breakfast muffin
- Ham/bacon/smoked salmon/ spinach (for Eggs Royale or Eggs Florentine)
- 100g salted butter
- 2 tbs white wine vinegar
Method
The base of Eggs Benedict is a toasted breakfast muffin topped with bacon or ham. This is then topped with the poached egg and the hollandaise sauce. Top with black pepper and even dill or parsley if you’re in the mood.
Hollandaise Sauce
Separate one egg yolk – to do this you can buy a tool or, above a bowl, tap the egg gently with a sharp knife. Pull the halves apart and the yolk will naturally settle in one shell half, let the white fall in to the bowl. Pass the yolk between the two halves of the shell and as you do the white will fall between the gaps and in to the bowl. You may need to practice this a few times but once you’ve done it once it will make sense.
Once you have the egg yolk place it in to a clean mixing bowl with a pinch of salt flakes. Whisk vigorously for a few minutes. While your whisking, heat the white wine vinegar in a pan and let it reduce slightly. Slowly pour the warmed vinegar in to the egg yolk and continue to whisk as fast as you can. Melt the butter and pour it slowly in to the yolk, whisking all the time.
The sauce should be lovely and thick. If it’s too thin you needed to add more white wine vinegar and if it separates you added the butter too quickly. I find it’s hard to save a separated sauce so just start again if this happens.
Poached Egg
Fill a large pan, 3/4 full of boiling water and bring to a rolling ball. No salt, no vinegar, no stirring – simple. Crack the eggs, one at a time, in to a shallow bowl (allows you to pick out any shell and control the drop in to the water). Gently drop the egg in to the pan and then repeat for the second egg. The eggs will take around 2 minutes to poach but they are ready when the start to float.
