Master Chef is a great show. I like the concept that all the contestants are amateur home cooks and throughout the competitions, they learn and grow into the level of professional chefs. The challenges in each episode are very inspiring as well. I've made quite a few dishes that are inspired by the show, such as butter poached lobster from last season of our favorite contestant Luca. He did this challenge approaching the end of the season and the dish he presented was purely awesome! This time what caught my eye was this eggs benedict, a perfectly poached egg with pan-fried ham covered with creamy hollandaise sauce on a piece of nicely toasted English muffin. I think they've done this challenge in last season too but since I've had an unpleasant experience of making hollandaise sauce before, I was kind of intimidated by this dish. After all it's not a regular breakfast at home by no means.
Ever since Sebastian was born, I've spent much less time in the kitchen (not that I didn't feel like cooking, but it seems to be a thousand of different other things to do before I can squeeze some time out for cooking... well it is what it is for an inexperienced new mother). I do enjoy making breakfast on weekend as during the week we never get chance to sit at table having breakfast together. The other big reason is that Chris can skip breakfast, lunch altogether and have no food in his stomach at all until a huge barbecue dinner. Not healthy! So let's just make this weekend a little bit special and I'm determined to try this dish out.
And... it ain't easy! I found chef Gordon Ramsay's video on Youtube only to replace the ham with smoked bacon (again the bacon! It's our true love..lol). I tempted to follow the video step by step but that was just a mission impossible. I can NOT move so fast and efficiently while multitasking! So I decided to start with the most difficult part, the hollandaise sauce. Ingredients could not be any simpler but the process was a total work out. My arm began to be sore after 2 minutes of constant whisking egg yolks! To make things worse, the temperature of the water was too high and the yolks started to curdle. Ugh..there we go, another failed attempt. Dumped it out, cleaned the pot, cracked more eggs and warmed up some more butter, went for the 2nd attempt. Chris helped me to whisk the yolks this time! Woohoo!!! I lowered the heat and took the sauce off the heat as soon as it started to thicken up a little bit. It worked!!! YAY~~~~~~~Then the poached eggs. This was actually much easier than I expected. Swirl the water and one egg at a time, cook till the egg white start to firm up, drain it before assembling. The eggs were beautifully cooked, yolks oozing out when cut in half. YUM!!
Okay, I have to one thing. I'm not gonna make this breakfast very often no matter how wonderful it tastes. Cholesterol, cholesterol, cholesterol! Imagine all the yolks with butter, muffin toasted in bacon fat, oh yeah, they sound so yummy but seriously, you won't feel too good by eating that on a regular basis. Plus, it just makes the dish more attractive when it's for a special occasion, right? Now I can let Chris skip his lunch and wait for his favorite dinner time.
Eggs Benedict
- 4 eggs
- 2 English muffins
- 4 slices of smoked bacon
- 1 batch of Hollandaise sauce (see below Hollandaise sauce recipe)
- 1 tbs of white vinegar
- a pinch of salt
Steps:
- Bring a pot of water into boil. Add a tbs of white vinegar and swirl the water gently.
- Break 4 eggs into individual cups. Drop 1 egg at a time into the boiling water. Remove any excessive egg whites.
- Poach the egg for 2-3 minutes and move the egg with a spotted spoon on to a kitchen towel to drain any extra water. Repeat the same process until all the eggs are done.
- While poaching the eggs, put bacon slices on a flat pan on medium high heat. Cook the bacon slices until they are almost crispy.
- Pull the bacon slices out onto a piece of paper towel to drain extra oil.
- Pour out the bacon grease and leave a little bit in the pan. Toast the English muffin in the bacon fat on high heat for about 1 minute.
- For assembling, lay 1 bacon slice on a piece of muffin, put the poached egg on bacon slice. Pour a generous spoon full of Hollandaise sauce on top.
Hollandaise Sauce
- 3 egg yolks
- 1/2 cups of butter, melted
- 1 lime, juice
- a pinch of cayenne pepper
- a pinch of salt
Steps:
- In a glass bowl, whisk egg yolks vigorously until volume almost doubled
- Bring a pot of water into simmer. Turn the heat to low. Put the bowl of egg yolks on top of the simmering water. Keep whisking.
- Add warm butter into the yolks, one tablespoon at a time, whisk until well combined.
- Keep adding butter until all butter is well combined with the yolks.
- Remove from heat. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper and salt to the taste. Add lime juice and whisk to combine.
- Cover and keep warm until ready to serve.
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