I have now had eggs benedict 3 times in my life. Once was made (I believe) with home-made hollandaise sauce, and another with a store bought powder mixture. And once was a interesting twist on the original that I made here at our apartment in Dubai.
At school we of course are required to learn how to make hollandaise sauce. It is a tricky, and very tiring process. It is easy to mess up. But if you know the steps, and have good arm muscles, you can absolutely make it at home. It's a weekend food; definitely not something you try to make before work on Monday morning.
Hollandaise sauce is also not something to eat on a daily basis for health reasons. The main component of the sauce is butter, which is made of saturated fats. So it's really not the healthiest food to slather all over your eggs or asparagus. At school, we make it the official way. At my apartment, I do not keep butter. I only keep buttery spreads because they are much lower in saturated fat. So this was a bit of an experiment to see if it would work. So I'll give you the official step by step method, and then let you know what I did differently. This is more than a recipe because it is so detailed. Just reading and using a recipe for hollandaise leaves room for so much error!
First, take about 10 tablespoons of butter and melt over the stove on medium-low heat. You want to make sure it doesn't boil, but you also want to allow the impurities (white foamy stuff is the technical term) to rise to the top. When that happens, you can take it off heat. Then take off all the foamy white stuff using a spoon. This is known as clarifying the butter. What you are left with should be at least 80ml (yes I only really know the metric amounts since that is what we do in school) of clarified butter. Keep it off hot heat but keep it warm.
Next, you need to pour about 2 tbsp white vinegar into a small saute pan. Add in 3 whole peppercorns, 1-2 bay leaves, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of cayenne to the vinegar. Put the saute pan on the stove over medium-high heat and let the vinegar reduce by half. Take the vinegar off the heat and add in about 1/2 to 3/4 tbsp of cold water (to stop the reduction).
Then, separate one egg so the yolk is in one bowl and discard the egg white (or use it for something else). Strain the vinegar mixture into the egg yolk.
Heat a medium sauce pan filled about half way with water and bring to a low simmer. Reduce heat slightly. Now comes the painful part. Hold the bowl of egg and vinegar over the sauce pan without letting the bowl touch the water and while letting steam escape from the pan. With your other hand, whisk whisk whisk!!!!!! Use all your strength and then some to whisk the egg. And try to ignore the logical thought of taking your other hand away from the heat.
You must whisk until the egg reaches a 'sabayon.' This just means the egg mixture should thicken a little before you can stop whisking and take it off the heat. Once you do that, then it is time for more whisking! It helps if you have another person around for this next step. You will need to slowly pour in the clarified butter with one hand while whisking with the other, and somehow manage to keep your bowl stable. So you can hold the bowl and whisk while the other person slowly pours in the butter. It is also nice to have someone else there so you can take turns whisking after your muscles get tired. If you are super talented or feeling really independent- try it by yourself. Whisk in the clarified butter until the sauce has a creamy thickness. You should be able to pour it from a spoon, but it should definitely stick to the back of the spoon. Hollandaise is for spreading and pouring, so it can be thicker than most sauces. When it is done, add a teaspoon of lemon juice. And you're done!! Put over eggs benedict or asparagus.
After typing this up, it doesn't really sound like the most ideal thing to try at home. But if you like a challenge- here it is!
So the healthier (and low-on-supplies-method) used buttery spread instead of butter; thyme instead of bay leaf; apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar; no cayenne pepper. I tried melting the butter in the microwave, but it never got liquidy. So it did not require much butter to thicken my sabayon. So it turned out fairly healthy considering my recipe created multiple portions.
For the eggs benedict:
toast half of an English muffin, poach an egg, and crisp a piece of canadian bacon in a saute pan. Then top it with the hollandaise
To store or not to store? It is recommended not to keep hollandaise for more than 2 hours. There are a couple reasons. One- reheating too fast or at too high a heat will cook the eggs too much and they were harden. Another, involves food safety. Did we even cook the egg? So the reason hollandaise works (meaning you are not scrambling eggs in a Bain marie) is because of the vinegar. Vinegar reduces the temperature at which eggs cook. So you can bring eggs to about 140*F or higher without cooking them. But you have reached a high enough temperature to kill most of the bacteria. If I had a thermometer here in Dubai, I would have monitored the temperature of the sabayon. But if you decide to make it- you can definitely do that. The more vinegar you add, the higher the cooking temperature of eggs (but also the more you have to whisk to reach a sabayon). For reheating- make sure the temperature is fairly low and you heat it up slowly. Also, watch the temperature and make sure it does not go too high but does not stay too low. It is best to reach 170*F for reheating food, though this may be slightly too high for an egg product.
At school we of course are required to learn how to make hollandaise sauce. It is a tricky, and very tiring process. It is easy to mess up. But if you know the steps, and have good arm muscles, you can absolutely make it at home. It's a weekend food; definitely not something you try to make before work on Monday morning.
Hollandaise sauce is also not something to eat on a daily basis for health reasons. The main component of the sauce is butter, which is made of saturated fats. So it's really not the healthiest food to slather all over your eggs or asparagus. At school, we make it the official way. At my apartment, I do not keep butter. I only keep buttery spreads because they are much lower in saturated fat. So this was a bit of an experiment to see if it would work. So I'll give you the official step by step method, and then let you know what I did differently. This is more than a recipe because it is so detailed. Just reading and using a recipe for hollandaise leaves room for so much error!
First, take about 10 tablespoons of butter and melt over the stove on medium-low heat. You want to make sure it doesn't boil, but you also want to allow the impurities (white foamy stuff is the technical term) to rise to the top. When that happens, you can take it off heat. Then take off all the foamy white stuff using a spoon. This is known as clarifying the butter. What you are left with should be at least 80ml (yes I only really know the metric amounts since that is what we do in school) of clarified butter. Keep it off hot heat but keep it warm.
Next, you need to pour about 2 tbsp white vinegar into a small saute pan. Add in 3 whole peppercorns, 1-2 bay leaves, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of cayenne to the vinegar. Put the saute pan on the stove over medium-high heat and let the vinegar reduce by half. Take the vinegar off the heat and add in about 1/2 to 3/4 tbsp of cold water (to stop the reduction).
Then, separate one egg so the yolk is in one bowl and discard the egg white (or use it for something else). Strain the vinegar mixture into the egg yolk.
Heat a medium sauce pan filled about half way with water and bring to a low simmer. Reduce heat slightly. Now comes the painful part. Hold the bowl of egg and vinegar over the sauce pan without letting the bowl touch the water and while letting steam escape from the pan. With your other hand, whisk whisk whisk!!!!!! Use all your strength and then some to whisk the egg. And try to ignore the logical thought of taking your other hand away from the heat.
You must whisk until the egg reaches a 'sabayon.' This just means the egg mixture should thicken a little before you can stop whisking and take it off the heat. Once you do that, then it is time for more whisking! It helps if you have another person around for this next step. You will need to slowly pour in the clarified butter with one hand while whisking with the other, and somehow manage to keep your bowl stable. So you can hold the bowl and whisk while the other person slowly pours in the butter. It is also nice to have someone else there so you can take turns whisking after your muscles get tired. If you are super talented or feeling really independent- try it by yourself. Whisk in the clarified butter until the sauce has a creamy thickness. You should be able to pour it from a spoon, but it should definitely stick to the back of the spoon. Hollandaise is for spreading and pouring, so it can be thicker than most sauces. When it is done, add a teaspoon of lemon juice. And you're done!! Put over eggs benedict or asparagus.
After typing this up, it doesn't really sound like the most ideal thing to try at home. But if you like a challenge- here it is!
So the healthier (and low-on-supplies-method) used buttery spread instead of butter; thyme instead of bay leaf; apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar; no cayenne pepper. I tried melting the butter in the microwave, but it never got liquidy. So it did not require much butter to thicken my sabayon. So it turned out fairly healthy considering my recipe created multiple portions.
For the eggs benedict:
toast half of an English muffin, poach an egg, and crisp a piece of canadian bacon in a saute pan. Then top it with the hollandaise
To store or not to store? It is recommended not to keep hollandaise for more than 2 hours. There are a couple reasons. One- reheating too fast or at too high a heat will cook the eggs too much and they were harden. Another, involves food safety. Did we even cook the egg? So the reason hollandaise works (meaning you are not scrambling eggs in a Bain marie) is because of the vinegar. Vinegar reduces the temperature at which eggs cook. So you can bring eggs to about 140*F or higher without cooking them. But you have reached a high enough temperature to kill most of the bacteria. If I had a thermometer here in Dubai, I would have monitored the temperature of the sabayon. But if you decide to make it- you can definitely do that. The more vinegar you add, the higher the cooking temperature of eggs (but also the more you have to whisk to reach a sabayon). For reheating- make sure the temperature is fairly low and you heat it up slowly. Also, watch the temperature and make sure it does not go too high but does not stay too low. It is best to reach 170*F for reheating food, though this may be slightly too high for an egg product.
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