EGGS BENNY, ANYONE.

neanderthin

For all of you egg and food lovers out there I have put together this workshop (recipe) for a better understanding and hopefully an instructive tutorial of this often forgotten dish...... probably because it has all that bad cholesterol and animal fat that a whole generation of people have been trying to avoid, so without further ado.

WARNING: the author (me) is in no way responsible for any increase in ideologies that needlessly exacerbate people’s neurosis toward food......lol

EGGS BENEDICT: CLASSIC & VARIATIONS

All Egg Benedict recipes have a few things in common, which are the poached eggs and the making of a butter sauce and to which the classic recipes uses hollandaise sauce, so here's the basics from which to start, and the inspiration that feeds our imaginations and other possibilities.

POACHED EGGS

Basically poaching an egg is just slipping an egg into simmering water until it set's enough to firm up the whites but not enough for the yolk to get hard. Easy right, well, not really and like everything in life there are ideal/good/poor versions of just about anything, so without complicating the matter lets take a look at a few ways of poaching.

Simmering water is not the same as boiling and it's imperative the water does not come to the boil. Simmering water would be around 190 degree's....small bubbles coming to the surface, slowly. But any water from 170 to 190 will work very well.

Because protein when coming into contact with an acid, like vinegar or lemon juice causes that protein to denature (coagulate). In the case of an egg, the whites will coagulate quickly and turn white, this is the denaturing process and when poaching an egg this is very desirable because this prevents the white from spreading out...we want nice compact poached eggs where the white surrounds the yolk, so we're going to use an acid of some kind.

How to poach an egg: Use a pan at least deep enough for the water to cover the eggs......generally 3" will do and big enough to hold all your eggs at once, unless of course your feeding an army or large family. In that case poach in batches, submerge in cold water then just warm them through in hot water.....takes 15 seconds (chef's tip)..... Ok, this is where we add the acid and because the hollandaise is lemon based, we're going to use lemon, you can use vinegar if you like....it's cheaper. Add 1 tbsp of acid/lemon to you water...that should do it.

Here's the variation: If you feel uncomfortable making poached eggs, which many people do, use something that will help keep the eggs from moving around like poached egg rings or small cans from salmon and tuna and mason jar lids are popular.

Place the eggs in the simmering aciduated water and using a spoon for a little nudge that helps to keep the whites together just until they start to set, then remove from the heat source, add a lid to cover completely.......allow 3 to five minutes for cooking depending on your desired doneness. Pretty easy right? Next.

HOLLANDAISE SAUCE:

A hollandaise sauce is basically a butter sauce, not dissimilar really from a caesar salad dressing......egg yolks and fat.

Ingredients

3 yolks
3/4 cup of unsalted, melted butter
1 tbsp of cold water
1 tbsp of lemon juice
Sea Salt & pepper

Whisk the yolks in a double boiler or stainless bowl until well incorporated and it has gone pale and looks lighter in density....2 minutes. Add the water and lemon and keep whisking over simmering water until the yolks are thick and pale. Remove from heat. Add the butter slowly and keep whisking until all the butter i used.....should have the consistency and thickness of a heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Keep warm over hot water, off the heat. Done. Easy.

Basically the classic version calls for an English muffin and Canadian bacon and with a French sauce, this is truly an international dish. Anyway toast an English muffin and place Canadian bacon on the muffin to which we add 1 or 2 poached eggs and napped generously with hollandaise sauce.


OK......the variations:

We can substitute the English muffin for just about anything you want and we can substitute the Canadian bacon for anything as well.
For example, we can use cooked or grilled Polenta and Prosciutto. Croissant and smoked salmon. Dungeness crab and vol au vent. Jalapeno sausage and grits. Avocado and tomato. Crab cake and lobster........... We can change the hollandaise to what ever we want. cilantro and lime. Saffron. Tarragon. Curry. Chili powder. we can add other ingredients like spinach or other greens like asparagus, broccoli, beets etc.......I think everyone can come up with one or two variations that might suit them......

LATeagno

This is awesome! I totally never mastered egg poaching. lol.