Week 2: Eggs Benedict

Hi everyone!

Unfortunately not my
eggs benedict

This week I decided to make Eggs Benedict. God knows why- I've never even tasted the dish. But, me being me, thought, I've never poached an egg before and I've no idea what Hollandaise sauce is. Gee I know nothing! Let’s give this a jolly good go.

I hunted online for a MasterChef-worthy recipe. I was tossing up between versions by darling Jamie Oliver and his Australian wannabe, Curtis Stone, when I stumbled upon Julia Child’s recipe. Coincidentally, I’d rewatched the wonderfully sweet film, Julie and Julia, the day before. In a typically ill-advised go-with-the-heart decision, I took on Julia’s recipe. Looking back, I wish I hadn't. Here’s what went down.

Hollandaise Sauce

I found the recipe annoyingly ambiguous, but that’s probably because I'm shit at cooking. How am I supposed to tell if my eggs are cooking too fast? And Julia, do I look like I know what consistency I want my sauce to be? Can’t you just tell me what to do? 

I ended up with a saucepan of softened butter which reeked of lemon. ‘What is Hollandaise sauce meant to taste like?’ I frantically googled. In a nutshell: not like my pot-full of sour aftertaste. 

Who knew that a butter based
 sauce could cause so much pain?

Something had gone very wrong- I just didn't know what. I decided to use a tactic that I often employ in the context of interpersonal relationships, whereby I leave the issue alone and hope that it fixes itself. I now know that it works with neither friends nor Hollandaise sauce.

Later on, I attempted to resurrect my sauce by adding milk. This failed. Abysmally. Once again, I was left with what looked like school-camp scrambled eggs, reminiscent of last week’s disasters.

Sidenote: Can I just say that whisks are the silliest contraption, I have EVER come across? Why, oh why, do they bounce? Four times during the cook, the damn whisk, seemingly of its own accord, jumped out of its saucepan and splattered everything within a 30 cm radius with my horrible Hollandaise.

Poached eggs

Ahh, redemption is sweet. I was so wracked with nerves as I plopped my first egg in, that I got mild steam burn for taking too long. But it was worth it! By some sort of miracle, every single one of my eggs stayed intact!

The Hollandaise sauce was ditched, and I served my family glorified eggs on toast. But they told me they liked it, so no harm done, right?

Introducing my new ranking rubric:

My innovative take on the traditional eggs benedict:
Egg on a muffin because you can't cook

Taste: 7/10- twas bloody good eggs on toast

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 

2/10- it looked appetising. However it bore no resemblance to Eggs Benedict, since it, in fact, wasn't Eggs Benedict.

Time: 1/10- 1 hour and 25 minutes is rather pathetic for eggs on an English muffin

Kitchen Mess: 4/10- not a complete disaster zone, but again pretty bad for eggs on toast.

Thanks for reading, I hope that you're well. See you next Sunday!

Cheers,

Rosa