Friday, February 6, 2009

Eggs Benedict Arnold

What are Eggs Benedict Arnold you might ask.  It is when your eggs and everything else turn traitor on you.  It has been a while since I have posted anything so I thought I needed to try something new.  One of the things on my unwritten list of things to try was poached eggs.  

Poached eggs was probably one of the things that got me started in cooking.  I remember cooking lots of poached eggs as a child.  Not "real" poached eggs but the kind you make in the little cups.  As a kid I remember liking how perfect they looked if you made them right.  You had to time it just right so the yolk was runny but the white wasn't.  Then I would flip them over on toast and if everything went right they didn't break until you were ready to break them.

Well that was over 30 years ago so I thought it was time to try making poached eggs for real - in boiling water.  What better way to use poached eggs than in Eggs Benedict.  That way I would get to try out making a Hollandaise sauce too.

 How many things can go wrong in one recipe.  My first mistake was believing that I could make the Hollandaise sauce ahead of time.  The timing is kind of short on Eggs Benedict so I liked the idea of pre-making the Hollandaise.  I have fallen for the same make-ahead thing twice when making butter cream frosting and it didn't work either time.  It didn't work here either.  Making the Hollandaise does take a little while and you need to stir the whole time but it wasn't too hard and this step actually went well.  The sauce looked and tasted good.  The recipe said I could store it and reheat at 50% in the microwave - stirring every 10 seconds.  As soon as it started to get warm the sauce separated and the eggs started to cook - it ended up looking kind of curdled.  

I think the bad sauce would have been enough wrong but that wasn't the end.  I cooked the English muffins in the broiler and burnt them - not too big of a disaster - I threw some more in and got the next batch right.  The eggs ended up over done too - probably because I was so flustered dealing with all the other stuff.  

Considering all the issues they didn't taste too bad - you could tell what they were supposed to be at least.  I won't make you view any pictures of this one though - it wasn't pretty.  I will put this on my list to try again.  Give me a month or two to get over it and I will try again and hopefully get it right next time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think EB is the ultimate in taste bjt your funny tale of making it is so true. I'm still looking for the shortcuts on making it, but the recipe seems to keep you challenged. Great post.

Todd M said...

It was my first try so hopefully I will have better luck next time. It is not that any part of the process is that hard - just seemed hard to get it to come all together. By the way Daddy Cooking - love the name - do you have a Blog?