NYC Egg Benedict
Delmonico's classic breakfast at home…
We discovered the Egg Benedict during our parental leave in NYC back in 2016. We spent a lovely month in the Upper West Side of Manhattan with our first baby and enjoyed the city at its best.
Close to our flat we had a fantastic restaurant called NICE MATIN (201 W 79th St, New York, NY 10024) that had a great brunch menu that included Egg Benedict… needless to say that it was amazing!! The sauce hollandaise was so intense and creamy and the poached eggs where so perfectly poached that the whole experience was fantastic. On top, as the atmosphere of the restaurant was really comfortable and child-friendly, we ended up going for brunch there almost at a weekly basis.
After that, we became addicted to this plate. We tried it also a couple of years later in Sydney with it’s ultra “healthy version” and then in San Francisco with a more spicy take and what they called “Millionaires Bacon”… which a bit thicker tranche of bacon that we are used to un Europe, but totally worth it when very crispy.
Back home, we had to try to make this dish. After a couple of failed trials, we managed to pull it off and now this dish is something we do from time to time on Sunday mornings, as we can take enough time to prepare and assemble all the elements. I always do the sauce and K has become the poached egg expert of our couple. We still do it with bagels as we had it in NY, but honestly it also goes very well with a normal bun.
And here it is :
1 - Sauce Hollandaise for 2
2 egg yolk
125 gr unsalted butter
2 Tsp water
Lemon juice
Salt
You start my melting the butter in a water bath or a medium heated sauce pan. It is important to remove the milk that separates from the butter.
Once you are ready with it, you need to get ready to stir like there is no tomorrow. In a double bath, you add the yolks the lemon juice and the water, and then you start to stir them until they get really foamy.
You then start to add slowly the clarified butter and you keep stirring. Here you need to be careful with the temperature. It should never get to 45deg C or it will break. If you think it’s getting too hot, then remove the bowl from the vapour and then you’ll be fine.
2- Poached egg
OK this part is a bit tricky at the beginning, but it gets easier along the way.
Crack the egg into a coffee cup so that it is easier to handle
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and then bring the heat down to low.
Add a tsp white vinegar and stir to create a small vortex. Then transfer the egg to the water right in the middle of the vortex and cook for 3min.
Remove the egg with a slotted spoon and remove the excess water with a paper towel
At the beginning it is pretty normal to fail the poaching either by undercooking the egg or having the egg spreading all over the pot. The process is very simple but requires a bit of technique… so practise!
Once the sauce and the eggs are ready then it is only a matter of putting it all together. You need to put the toasted bagels/muffins in a plate, then the poached egg (after removing the excess water with a paper napkin) and then you add either smoked salmon or crispy parma ham and at the end the sauce Hollandaise. A little rucola is fantastic for the fresh and bitter flavour or you can also go with chives.
If you want you can add a bit of spicy paprika to it for a bit of sparks as done in California.
Enjoy!
There are also a couple of videos in YouTube given alternative twists to this dish, but at the end it is a matter of nailing the sauce and the eggs and then finding your own preference with the composition
