A Cooking Experience - Eggs Benedict - January 2024

I am a sucker for a good Eggs Benedict. If I go to a breakfast or brunch place and they have Eggs Benedict on the menu 9 times out of 10 that is what I am eating. This year I decided to learn to make my own Eggs Benedict. Going into the process, I expected the most challenging part would be poaching the eggs, but that was not the case. 

Since I wanted to make everything I could I started by making my own sourdough English muffins. I used the English muffin recipe from The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo. This is our favorite sourdough cookbook. The English muffin recipe is a little intense. It took a couple of days to make the muffins, but they turned out so light and fluffy. The first batch I made wasn't perfect - I didn't have a few of the required ingredients on hand (unsalted butter, spelt flour, whole milk) so I substituted similar ingredients. It worked, but I made sure to have all of the ingredients on hand. The next couple of batches turned out so well. 

Alison and I have dabbled with poaching eggs without much success. We even bought these little devices that allegedly made perfect poached eggs. It makes okay poached eggs, but they aren't great. This go round I used the poached egg recipe from The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook. The instructions were so simple and allowed me to make excellent poached eggs every time. I made them 5 or 6 times this month and every time they were great. 

The actual hardest part was the hollandaise sauce. I knew this would be a challenge, but it was more difficult than I expected. I used Tyler Florence's recipe from the Food Network. The first time I made it was a disaster. The egg yokes in the sauce were cooked and lumped together. The taste was okay, but the texture was awful. I quickly realized I needed a double boiler if I was going to pull this off. I bought a double boiler and the next attempt was much better, but was too runny. It took a few tries for me to get the right consistency and flavor. By the end of the month, I was making hollandaise like a pro. 

I made excellent Eggs Benedict a few times this month. I love the flavor and by the end of the month, my Eggs Benedict were as good, if not better, than the ones I have had at many different restaurants. This will go into the regular breakfast rotation going forward.