Easy Eggs Benedict-Impress the Girls

How to impress the Girls in the Morning – Eggs Benedict for Breakfast (or brunch).

You may not cook much; you may think you know nothing at all about cooking. This one is really, really easy. You only need a frying pan and a spatula or fish slice (or a spoon with holes in it).

Ingredients:

Eggs

Parma ham (or other ham)

Hollandaise sauce

Muffins

Practice ahead of time:

Poaching eggs – this is very simple but you get better with practice. (Skip this bit if you already know how to do it)

Put boiling water in the frying pan – at least about 1 inch deep (no don’t measure it with your finger, hold an ordinary teaspoon tip down, if half of the bowl of the spoon is covered it’s deep enough. Deeper is fine.)

Keep the water boiling.

Pour in a quick dash (about a teaspoon) of vinegar (any sort). This is to make the egg whites bunch up nicely and not spread all over the pan. Alternatively there is a good trick with plastic wrap you can do.

Scatter in half a teaspoon of salt.

Break in an egg (or two, or four if there’s two of you) – I like to break them into something else first, a saucer or something, to make sure it’s still fresh and to give me a chance to discard broken ones if I’ve been too clumsy. (You can still cook and eat broken ones but they don’t look as good and if you’re trying to impress……).

Let them cook in the boiling water. You want the whites to be all white and not wobbly when you shake them. I usually flip a bit of water over with the spatula at the end to cook the tops of the yolks if they haven’t cooked yet.

Tip: the pan will be a lot easier to clean if you carefully separate the bottom of the egg from the pan while it’s cooking.

It’s cooked: When the whites are all white and not wobbly in the middle and there’s a white film over the top of the yolk. If the yolk turns out to be light yellow and firm you’ve overcooked it, it’s supposed to be runny. (It still tastes good, though).

Lift the eggs out of the pan one at a time with a spatula or fish slice. Hold the egg over the water to let most of the drips go – you can pat the bottom gently with paper towel to get the last drips.

Practice eggs are really yummy just on a slice of toast. My sister likes them with tomato sauce (ketchup), but that’s up to you. If you really want a solid breakfast cook some oven chips (French fries) and put a couple of eggs on top.

Eggs Benedict

Pile one piece of Parma Ham (this is Italian ham) onto a side of toasted muffin (buttered or not, your choice). You can use ordinary ham or smoked salmon instead, for a different taste.

One poached egg goes on top of the slice of ham (or salmon).

A teaspoon of Hollandaise sauce on the top of the egg gives it the special eggs benedictness. Purists will tell you that the sauce should be warm. I’ve not found it necessary to be that fussy about it and taking a couple of spoonfuls from a jar is a lot easier.

Serve quickly while it’s still hot.

Key for success: Have everything ready before you poach the eggs. Toast the muffins at the same time, by all means, but eggs are very quick to cook so don’t try to do too much.

Getting good:

When you’re ready, try making the Hollandaise sauce yourself. It’s not hard and there are plenty of good recipes out there. You could try a little caviar over the sauce on salmon, or a little (a drop only) of truffle oil on top of the Hollandaise in a ham version or just scatter a few chopped chives for both looks and flavour on any version.

Enjoy!

Eggs Benedict

Take slices of toast, neatly rounded 

or, if you’re upper class, a muffin split in two,

add a slice of ham from Parma,

out of the Tescos Finest range.

Top with a fresh egg,

lightly poached and

drizzle with Hollandaise.

It’s really only ham and eggs,

vertically presented

with a posh name, but

Oh how it impresses the girls

at breakfast.

Linda Blackett 

May 2009