My wife and I love going out for breakfast. Whenever I look at a breakfast or brunch menu, my eyes immediately look for a Benedict. The classic of course is perfect, but there are so many variations. Last summer I was at a conference in Portland, Maine, and for breakfast I had a lobster Benedict. It was delicious.

It is credited that Eggs Benedict was created in New York in the 1860s at Delmonico’s by Chef Charles Ranhofer for Mrs. LeGrand Benedict when she was bored with the current menu offerings. Although, there are historical references that want to give credit to other New York restaurants as well as in New Orleans.

I have had a love of hollandaise sauce from the very first taste. I learned to make a hollandaise the first time from my now brother-in-law, Patrick Groth, who owns Incredibly Delicious. It was a little before I moved to New York for culinary school, and I wanted to go there with a better understanding of some of the things I was going to learn. He showed me how to make this delicate sauce over direct flame, because that is how a French chef taught him how to do it. When I used this technique in class at the Culinary Institute of America, my instructor, who was a certified Master Chef, Chef Frye, asked me not to show my classmates that technique to make hollandaise because it was unforgiving and too hard to execute for those who didn’t understand the chemistry. Traditionally it is done over a double boiler which allows for more errors and takes a little longer to reach necessary temperatures. I have since streamlined my method and use a direct heat method with hot butter that saves time and makes an awesome sauce, but allows no room for error.

Poached eggs are amazing with this sauce. I mean it’s insanely rich, but delicious. Soft boiled eggs or sous vide eggs with a runny yolk have had a lot a fun attention in food pictures on all kinds of media platforms. I can’t help but smile when I see a food video of a soft yolk being broken open and the bright yellow yolk flows out. As much as I love sous vide cooking, I would rather have a poached egg.

In my last article, I spoke about cooking steaks for my wife, and though she loves a good beurre blanc, I have made hollandaise far more often with a steak for her over the years. Steak is just one of the many options to place under the egg in a Benedict. The classic is Canadian bacon and spinach makes it a Florentine. I mentioned lobster, but crab meat is also wonderful. I have tried just about everything as I love to tinker with food, and nothing comes to mind that I have not ever enjoyed.

As far as the base goes, an English muffin is the classic and once again it is difficult to make a bad choice when thinking about a substitute.

This is a fun dish to make that has a million variations. Once you understand how to cook the egg and make the sauce, the rest is just picking delicious ingredients to stack together and pour a fantastically rich, buttery sauce over.

Poaching Egg

• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• Salt to taste

1. Bring a pot of water to boil, then turn it down to barely a simmer.
2. Add the vinegar and add a little salt to season the water.
3. Break the egg into a small bowl, careful not to break the yolk.
4. Gently drop the egg into the water and set a timer for 3 minutes.
5. Use a slotted spoon to carefully remove the egg.
6. Sit the egg on a heavy paper towel for a moment to remove any access water.
7. Carefully move the egg to the top of the dish you are preparing, and ideally cover with hollandaise sauce.

Hollandaise Sauce

• 1 egg yolk
• 4 ounces of melted butter
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
• Tabasco sauce, a couple drops
• Lemon juice to taste

1. Place the egg yolk into a small sauce pot.
2. Using a whisk with thin wires, beat the yolk over a low flame until it lightens in color and has a warm smell. You really cannot put too much air into this, more air helps.
3. Off the heat, VERY SLOWLY, drizzle in the warm melted butter while constantly whisking.
4. If it gets a little thick, add a couple DROPS of water to thin just a tiny bit.
5. Once the butter is emulsified into the sauce, add the rest of the ingredients to your preference.
6. Return sauce to a low flame and whisking constantly, bring the sauce to an appropriate temperature. Not too hot, as you will instead get delicious buttery scrambled eggs instead of a velvet smooth sauce.
7. Pour over a perfectly poached egg, steak or something else that is delicious with buttery things. Enjoy!

About

Lincoln Land Community College offers credit programs in Culinary Arts, Hospitality Management and Baking/Pastry, and non-credit cooking and food classes through LLCC Community Education.

Cooking or food questions? Email epicuriosity101@llcc.edu.