Making breakfast for my girlfriend has become my task every weekend. Over the quarter, I usually cook soba noodles or udon noodles with bonito soup. This is the best substitution for instant noodles. But it’s Christmas. it should be something different to surprise my girlfriend. This was my first attempt to make Egg Benedict.
Egg Benedict is an American dish. Traditionally it was an English muffin topped with bacon, a pouched egg and hollandaise sauce. As I didn’t buy English muffins and bacon, I replaced them with bagels and smoked salmon.
You may buy hollandaise sauce at the supermarket, but other than making Egg Benedict, I didn’t know what else I would use hollandaise sauce. I took a more challenging approach – making it myself.
Here was my first attempt – I mixed two egg yolks with one tablespoon of white vinegar and then poured them into a pan of simmering water. After adding the butter and salt, I stirred the mixture until it became thickened. Finally, I pour the sauce into a bowl and sealed it with a cling film.
Later on I further read the recipes on the Internet and realised I was wrong. Instead of putting the egg yolks into the simmering water, I should place the bowl onto the pan with simmering water. Direct heat from the pan makes the sauce rough. It is also useless to pour the egg yolks into the water. The water would just vaporise and thus take much redundant time to cook the hollandaise sauce.
Concerning food safety, I don’t use raw vegetables for my dishes, at least in Hong Kong. There are prepared salad vegetables in the Japanese supermarket but they are expensive. Therefore, instead of using lettuce and arugula, my next step was to fry some mushrooms with garlic. After that, I placed them into a bowl, topped them with the bagels and rosemary leaves, and put them into the oven for 10 minutes.
While waiting for the oven, it’s time to make pouched eggs. This was the most difficult step in the whole process. I sometimes broke the yolk when cracking eggs. If the yolk is broken, it will never be turned into a pouched egg.
First, I boiled a pot of water with a water level high enough to cover the eggs. Adding two tablespoons of white vinegar help break the protein of the eggs so that the egg white can be firmed more quickly. When the water is simmered, I then pour 4 eggs one by one. About 4 minutes later, the pouched eggs were ready to serve.
Combining all the above 4 ingredients with the smoked salmon, my first Egg Benedict was done. This of course surprised my girlfriend, who just woke up when I was cooking pouched eggs.
First Attempt
A colourful and delicious breakfast is a start of a good day. European and American breakfasts are usually complex but fun. It requires patience and skilful technique. In the coming weeks, I’ll practise more on making Egg Benedict. Hope to see a better result soon.