A Trick for Perfect Poached Eggs and an Easy Blender Hollandaise – Foolproof Eggs Benedict Recipe

This may not excite the flavor-of-the-month crowd but sometimes, you have to return to the classics. Those dishes that when made well, never let you down and that have earned their place at the table.

Eggs Benedict is not new or trendy (or even tricky!) but it is good, and it’s something that when made at home and made well, will impress and taste pretty heavenly.

For most people, Eggs Benedict is the quintessential brunch dish, to be ordered at restaurants and never to be attempted at home. But although there are 2 tricky parts to a good eggs Benedict, through a little ingenuity (not mine…) making a decent brunch dish at home has become a lot easier than it used to be.

When making Eggs Benedict, you worry about 2 things

1. That the eggs won’t poach neatly or that they will overcook (or end up as a broken mess in your simmering water)
2. That your hollandaise will break

The neat poached egg problem has been solved through a very nifty trick involving saran wrap! You can read about making easy perfect poached eggs every time and quit worrying about this first part.

The second half of the challenge, making a stable hollandaise, is simplified greatly with an easy blender hollandaise, and since at home you don’t have to worry about holding the sauce for a long service, you don’t really have to be too concerned about losing the sauce to a “break".

I got this easy technique from Saveur magazine, (having been brought up on the restaurant brunch whisking school of hollandaise making myself.) It’s easy and its good and it’s pretty near foolproof.

Blender Hollandaise

• 3 egg yolks
• One heaping Tbls of lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• 4 tsps of warm water
• A shake of Tabasco
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup melted unsalted butter (if you use salted butter, just use less salt above)

Combine all ingredients but the butter in a blender and turn it on. Drizzle the melted butter in to the running blender very slowly. When you have drizzled it all in, you have a nice thick hollandaise. Pretty easy huh! Serve immediately.

Assembling an Eggs Benedict

On the off chance that you don’t know how to put together this legendary dish, here are some very basic instructions.

• Fry up one rasher of Canadian bacon for each English Muffin Half
• Toast and butter an English muffin
• Poach 2 eggs per serving
• Make hollandaise

To assemble, on each open faced buttered English muffin half, lay a piece of Canadian bacon and top with a poached egg. Drizzle all over with hollandaise sauce and serve. Yum!

If you’ve never made this classic dish…what are you waiting for – it’s delicious!