Publius & Co.

Eggs Benedict

One of my all-time favorite meals is Eggs Benedict, but I don't eat it that often. It's difficult to make, and if you go out for breakfast...let's just say some restaurants don't go to the trouble of making it properly. What is absolutely necessary for Eggs Benedict is a real hollandaise sauce; anything else isn't worth eating...especially that pre-packaged Knorr's that is served in so many restaurants. The gf and I went out for breakfast a few times this year and she ordered Eggs Benedict--I was appalled at the taste and appearance of their "hollandaise." With the new kitchen and a long weekend, I decided to prepare real Eggs Benedict for her.

I worked in a French kitchen for over two years and I made two hollandaise sauces a day, for lunch and for dinner, whipping by hand over a gas flame. The time needed to make a sauce is close to 30 minutes, whipping all the time, and yeah, I do have carpal tunnel syndrome.

Hollandaise isn't made from stock and roux; it's an emulsion of butter and liquid--in this case, wine. For a chicken or vegetable dish, you'd use chicken stock, and fish stock for a fish dish. Egg yolks are used to help bind the emulsion together, then lemon is added as a flavoring. A good hollandaise will have a satiny texture, a nice yellow color, and a taste that is a beautiful combination of butter and lemon. It's one of the best tasting things you can put in your mouth, but your heart probably won't be too thrilled: Its main ingredients are butterfat and egg yolk. It is, to say the least, a royal pain in the ass to make, but it *really* impresses the girls.

I prepared this one in a manner completey foreign to me: I used an electric mixer, and I cooked the egg yolks in a water bath. As is stated here, one can't control the heat over a water bath as well as one can over a gas flame; I was afraid I'd scramble the eggs. As it happened, though, this hollandaise came out beautifully, and my mouth was very happy.

Hollandaise Sauce
4 eggs at room temperature, separated
1 pound of butter, melted
white wine
salt
pepper
lemon juice

1. Leave all eggs out of the refrigerator overnight and separate them when you're ready to start. Eggs in uncracked shells are ok to leave out for up to a week so don't worry they'll go rotten overnight. Using room temp. eggs will give you a better volume when whipping and a better texture when the sauce is finished.
2. Melt the butter. It will separate into three parts--the bottom is water and minerals and is useless. Very light milkfats will float on the top; skim that off and discard. The golden clarified butter in the middle layer is what you'll use.
3. Take four egg yolks in a stainless steel bowl and add an equal amount, by volume, of liquid (white wine, in this case) (I do it by eye), a dash of white pepper, and a dash of salt.
4. Start beating the bejeebers out of those eggs over low heat. I prefer doing it over a gas range, but since I no longer have a gas range, I did it over a water bath. Low temps are used so that the eggs won't scramble.
5. When your arm falls off, remember you've another one on the other side. Keep beating...or use an electric mixer.
6. As you mix in air, the yolks will increase in volume. Over time, however, the eggs will begin to break down and decrease in volume. When the volume starts to decrease, lift the whip every now and then. The sauce is ready for the next step when the tracks that drip off the whip hold themselves for several seconds--say a count of five or so.
7. Remove the eggs from the flame and beat for another minute or so, until the bottom of the bowl has cooled a bit.
8. Start adding the clarified butter v e r y s l o w l y, and beat it well after adding it. When you start off, just add it a teaspoon at a time (I'm serious!); when about half of the butter has been added, you can increase the rate at which you add the butter.
9. There's a point at which you stop adding the butter, but you should have someone who's made a hollandaise sauce before show you when. You will probably use close to the entire pound of clarified butter...but sometimes you won't. Experience will tell you when to stop adding it.
10. Almost done. Add the juice from one lemon and taste. You may have to add a bit more salt to temper the sharpness of the lemon juice; do so if necessary. There should also be a hint of butter to the taste; add a bit more if necessary. If there's not enough lemon flavor, of course, add a bit more juice, but be careful not to go overboard. Also, if the sauce is very thick, you can add a bit more of the liquid to the sauce.

Eggs Benedict
Hollandaise sauce
Two eggs for poaching
English muffin, split in half and toasted
Canadian bacon or ham
1. Make the hollandaise--see above.
2. Heat the water for poaching. Use a large, relatively shallow sauce pan, and do *not* let the water boil. The water should have large bubbles on the bottom of the pan, and one bubble will rise to the top every now and then.
3. When the water is ready for eggs, start toasting the muffin.
4. Crack each egg into a small bowl. This will allow you to discard an egg should the yolk break, and it also allows you to slide the raw egg into the water gently, resulting in a better-formed poaced egg.
5. Slide the eggs into the water one at a time. Put them toward the edge of the pan so that they won't slide into each other.
6. Heat the canadian bacon/ham somehow. Or don't--if it's sliced thin enough, the heat from the egg will warm it up. Trust me.
7. Construct the Eggs Benedict with a muffin on the bottom, ham on top of that, a poached egg on top of the ham, and cover it with the hollandaise sauce. Sprinkle a bit of paprika on top to give it a bit of color, and enjoy the party in your mouth.

There is, of course a price to be paid for this, and I'm not just talkin' about a sore arm and hardened arteries. As with all good parties...the kitchen will probably be trashed.

Posted by Victor at Julio 4, 2005 06:52 PM | TrackBack