Eggs Benedict
Mar 27th, 2009 by Roger
Eggs Benedict
Gently poached Eggs on Toasted English Muffin with peameal bacon and hollandaise sauce. Of course, I would suggest maple glazed ham instead of peameal bacon.
Looking for another great way to incorporate maple syrup into this classic recipe? Try homemade maple syrup and cheddar biscuits in place of English muffins (Find the recipe for these in the next ‘Chef’s News’).
Hollandaise Sauce:
|
Ingredients:
1 lb clarified butter
6 egg yolks
1 oz vinegar
2 oz white wine
12 crushed peppercorns
Juice of ½ lemon
Pinch of cayenne
Pinch of salt
|
Method: 1. Reduce vinegar, white wine and peppercorns in a sauce pan “by half”
2. Sieve, and allow to cool
3. Combine cooled reduction and egg yolks in a stainless steel bowl
4. Whisk continuously over a Bain-Marie (water bath) for approximately 5 minutes until the reduction and eggs are cooked to the ribbon stage 5. Remove the stainless steel bowl from the Bain Marie, place bowl on the counter and slowly add the clarified butter, whisking all the while. (its useful to have a couple sets of hands for this process to keep the bowl in place, if you’re on your own, just roll a wet towel up and wrap it around the bottom of the bowl to hold it in place)
6. Add lemon juice and season
|
Hollandaise sauce can seem a little complicated, but the trick is to have the clarified butter and egg yolks roughly the same temperature.
If you are feeling adventurous, feel free to add to the hollandaise sauce. Some popular classical derivatives of the Hollandaise sauce are:
Bearnaise – add tarragon
Choron – add tomato puree
Maltaise – add orange juice
Or, you could even try adding 4 parts hollandaise sauce to 1 part strawberry puree. Serve it with white asparagus. I know it sounds out there, but we will come back to this one in the up and coming issues of chefs news.
One way to cheat with this that works for me is to use a microwave safe dish and then microwave the sauce for 10 to 15 seconds at a time. Removing the sauce from the microwave and whisking briskly in between bursts of cooking.
You have to experiment with your microwave and may have to add a small amount of hot water if you over cook it but generally it is faster and easier than doing it the traditional way and the result, while not as nice as the traditional method, is still quite good!