Poaching an Egg is Hard

Since it's miserable outside today (it was hailing, for goodness sake. in spring!), we decided to ditch our usual cafe brunch. Well, I did anyway. D sort of went with my decision.

So, I went to experiment in the kitchen with the hope of recreating one of our favourite cafe breakfasts, the Eggs Benedict.

I thought making the hollandaise sauce would be the toughest bit as I didn't even have a clue of what made it up other than it was made out of eggs.

I found this recipe online and followed it (halving the ingredients as there was only the 2 of us). It came out fairly decent, especially for my first time. D even said it tasted better than the sauce we've had in some cafes.

ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
• 3 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 pinch ground white pepper
• 1 tablespoon water
• 225g (8 oz) butter, melted
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

preparation method

1. Fill the bottom of a double boiler part-way with water. Make sure that water does not touch the top pan. Bring water to a gentle simmer.
2. In the top of the double boiler, whisk together egg yolks, lemon juice, white pepper and 1 tablespoon water.
3. Add the melted butter to egg yolk mixture 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time while whisking yolks constantly.
4. If hollandaise begins to get too thick, add a teaspoon or two of hot water. Continue whisking until all butter is incorporated. Whisk in salt, then remove from heat. Place a lid on pan to keep sauce warm until ready to serve.

I didn't put as much lemon juice (I don't like it too tangy). I also added a sprinkling of cayenne pepper for some kick.

The most challenging part of the eggs benedict were the eggs. Poaching an egg takes skill. A lot of it. By this time, we only had 3 eggs left as I had used the 2 for the sauce.

I used the first one and the white went all over the place. It wasn't very pretty. D tried and his was even more of a disaster as the yolk broke while he was cooking it. The last egg went into the microwave in a poaching gizmo but that was crappy as well.

In the end, we still ate the ugly eggs. I assembled the ingredients: bagel, ham, ugly egg and covered the whole lot with hollandaise sauce. A lot of sauce to cover the ugliness of the eggs. Turned out quite yummy actually.

If I could do it all over again, I would actually research egg poaching first before I tried it. Lots of how-to videos on the net like this one.