Eggs Benedict with Quick Hollandaise and Sourdough Muffins
The grand brunch, without the fear
Contents
Eggs Benedict with Quick Hollandaise and Sourdough Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 sourdough English muffins, split (or 4 slices of sourdough toast)
- 4 very fresh large eggs, for poaching
- 4 slices of good ham, bacon or smoked salmon
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar, for the poaching water
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1 tbsp lemon juice, plus more to taste
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 150g unsalted butter
- A pinch of cayenne or smoked paprika
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Chives or chopped tarragon, to finish
Method
- Melt the butter in a small pan until hot and foaming, then keep it warm. Fill a deep pan with water, add the vinegar and bring to a bare simmer.
- Make the blender hollandaise: put the egg yolks, lemon juice, Dijon, a pinch of salt and the cayenne into a blender or tall jug. Blitz for 10 seconds.
- With the motor running, pour the hot melted butter in a slow, steady stream until the sauce is thick, glossy and pale. Taste, adjust with lemon and salt, and keep somewhere warm.
- Toast the split sourdough muffins until golden and warm the ham or bacon. If using salmon, leave it cold.
- Poach the eggs in the barely simmering water for about 3 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks still soft. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.
- Top each muffin half with ham, then a poached egg. Spoon over plenty of warm hollandaise.
- Finish with a dusting of cayenne, a grind of black pepper and a scatter of chopped herbs. Serve at once.
Eggs Benedict has a reputation it does not deserve. People treat it as restaurant food, the dish you order out because making hollandaise at home is supposedly a tightrope walk over a split, oily disaster. It is not. The trick I swear by is a blender hollandaise: hot butter poured into egg yolks with the motor running, emulsified in under a minute, no whisking arm and no double boiler. The other small upgrade is the muffin. A tangy, chewy sourdough English muffin underneath all that richness cuts through it and stops the whole plate feeling like a butter delivery system. With those two things sorted, Benedict goes from terrifying to a perfectly achievable lazy Sunday.
Advertisement
Related Content
Advertisement
