Easy Eggs Benedict At Home

Oh my gosh, look at that yolk. Eggs Benedict is my favorite breakfast in the whole world. We'll start off by making our poached eggs, and to do that, I'll add just a splash of vinegar to some lightly simmering water. The vinegar will give you very nicely shaped poached eggs. Before you crack in your eggs, you'll wanna clean them up just a touch by cracking them in to a small strainer, and if you move them carefully around, it should get rid of some of those extra loose bits of egg white that'll make for messy poached eggs. Once I've cleaned this first one off, I'll toss it off into a bowl, and then I'll do the same thing with my second egg. Again, just ever so carefully rolling it around in the whisk, and when it looks clean, you can pour it off into your bowl. From there, I'll create a small vortex in the water using a whisk, and then drop them right into that vortex. As you'll see, this pulls them to the center and keeps them nice and clean when you drop them into poach. Just give it another little stir to make sure they don't stick. While we let these cook for about three to four minutes, I'll start working on melting down the butter for our hollandaise sauce. For the hollandaise, we'll need two full sticks of butter. I know, it's a lot of butter, but not only will you want more hollandaise, but it's also easier to make a hollandaise if you use higher quantities of butter. This is one of the hard parts about making Eggs Benedict. To pull it off, you'll be working on a few different components at once while you make your dish. We'll let this melt down over low heat while we go to finish off our eggs. I'll put a bit of oil on a small baking sheet just so they don't stick, and once the whites are fully set but the yolks still look pretty jiggly and runny, I'll take my finished poached eggs out. You'll see that when I press my fingers onto that yolk, it's nice and squishy, but the white on the outside is still set. That's the sign of a good poached egg. Leave this hot poaching water off to the side. We're gonna use that later to reheat those eggs when we plate everything. As a next step, we're gonna toast off our English muffins, and I have a great little trick for that. Most of the time, you'll probably get English muffins that aren't cut quite yet. They'll come just like this. Instead of cutting them with a knife, grab a fork. Push that fork as far in as you can get it and trace all the way around the entire English muffin, and once you've traced all the way around the whole English muffin, pull it open like this. What that'll do is create all these nice little craggly bits so that when you go to toast it, you get those nice crispy and crunchy bits of texture, kind of like when you're eating fried chicken. If you cut it with a knife, it's all flat and boring. Now, grab a larger pan. It's time to cook our English muffins. Over medium heat, I'll add a lot of butter. Just make sure you have enough that it coats the bottom of the pan and is tall enough to reach up into the nooks and crannies of the English muffin itself. Once your butter's melted, flip all those English muffins face down into the butter, but make sure to lift each one up once or twice and re-drop it into the butter to really make sure the bottom is coated. That way, you'll get every spot nice and golden brown. This is where you need to get pretty focused. Think of yourself as an English muffin DJ. Spin them to make sure they're hitting different parts of the pan. Depending on your stove, every part of the pan's gonna have a slightly different temperature, so by moving them around all the time, we make sure that they don't sit too long in one place. And of course, we're constantly checking to make sure nothing is burning. If you time things right, the tops are gonna get nice and fluffy while the bottoms get fully toasted and golden brown. Just like a steak, you need to make sure to get a crust. Listen. We're looking for a nice golden brown color that's kind of similar to the tops of the English muffins. Once they look something like this, I'll turn off the heat and I'll leave this here. These will stay nice and warm while we make the last component, our hollandaise sauce. To cook it, you'll need to make a double boiler. Just add about a half an inch of water to the bottom of a pot and then find a heatproof bowl that fits inside that pot. This will basically just create steam around the bowl to cook the hollandaise sauce. While that's heating up, I'll separate out eight egg yolks. I tend to just crack them into my hands. Remove as much of that white as you can and then add them to a bowl. There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. Save these egg whites and use them for whatever you want. And then add these to that medium-sized bowl along with two tablespoons of lemon juice. Sometimes I measure, sometimes I don't. And then we whisk. You're gonna whisk this for a little while. Usually it takes about three to five minutes or until you get this sort of ribbon-like texture when you lift it up. This is a really good time to practice different types of whisking methods and seeing how fast you can really whisk. Once you lift it and feel like it's reached that ribbon-like consistency, go ahead and scrape down the sides. Bring it over the heat, making sure to keep that water underneath at a very low simmer, and immediately begin whisking. This is what makes hollandaise so difficult. If you leave any of the egg in one place for too long, it'll turn into scrambled eggs. While continuing to whisk, I'm gonna grab my melted butter and slowly start to pour. To properly combine this butter and egg, you need to whisk quickly and pour slowly. If you ever need a break, put down the butter and just whisk, whisk, whisk. I'll turn down my heat and add a splash of water to cool things down and help thin things out for a second. By the way, don't worry if you get a few small clumps of egg in there. You can always strain things out at the end, and it is very, very, very difficult to make a hollandaise without getting a single clump. I've been making hollandaise ever since I was a kid, and I still get clumps all the time. It doesn't change the taste at all, and if you strain it out, it won't change the texture either. Once I've finished adding all of my butter, I'll just keep stirring my hollandaise until it reaches the consistency that I want, and then it's done. As crazy as this might sound, if I close my eyes and go like this, and I hear that kind of foamy, hollow sound, I know it's finished. And now that my hollandaise is silky and fluffy, but still holds its shape, we'll move it off the heat. To finish it off, I'll add a nice sprinkle of salt, and it's time to plate. I'll toss my eggs back in the warm water for just a moment to let them get nice and warm. Then while those are heating up, I'll pick two of the best-looking English muffins, put them right down on my plate, and instead of the traditional Canadian bacon, I always prefer fatty smoked salmon, which I'll fold up and then lay down on both pieces of English muffin, and once those eggs are warm, I'll dry them off on a paper towel. Nobody likes a watery Benedict. Place those down over the salmon. Very carefully, we don't want them to break now. I'm gonna lay that hollandaise over the top of the eggs. I love hollandaise, so I'm often guilty of putting way too much. You can put however much you want. Then I like to put a little smoked paprika into a small whisk and just lightly tap over the hollandaise and to finish, a few fresh chopped chives. It adds a bit of nice flavor and a little color. The perfect eggs Benedict that you too can make at home. I got dibs on both.