vegetarian traitor.

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Today's post is brought to you by the often silent, but always lovely Seth.  He has been perfecting this breakfast for quite sometime now and is excited to share it with the world.

Eggs Benedict is a lavish breakfast that is usually considered to take a lot of work to make. And, in fact, it does take a lot of work. However, I found myself with a freshly-picked lemon, freshly-made bread, really good New Zealand eggs and butter, and I realised there was just no excuse to not make it. I found that yes, it can be done, and it can be done really well, if you take a few shortcuts here and there, and also if you don’t let the thought of making hollandaise sauce from scratch scare you (because it’s not as scary as it seems).

This is a [ovo/lacto] vegetarian version of the classic breakfast.

Eggs Benedict

Serves 1

Ingredients:
Hollandaise Sauce:
1 egg yolk
½ tsp cold water
salt, pepper to taste
½ small lemon (about the size of a lime)
24g butter

Eggs Benedict:
2 eggs
2 slices of bread
2 slices of a vine-ripe tomato
parsley
salt (kosher or rock) to taste

Suggested Garnish:
Potatoes, roasted in a pan or oven
rosemary, salt, pepper

Prep:
First of all, go out and get the most brilliant egg poach cheat ever invented. Hide them away in your kitchen, don’t admit that you have them, but get them. They make the scariest and most detrimental part of this recipe absolutely trivial.



OK, now we are ready to begin.

Oh wait, first, go make some of the BBC’s Irish Soda Bread. It’s quick and easy, rustic and delicious. You can make this days in advance; it’s a great dinner bread, just remember to save some slices for this breakfast.

OK, now we’re ready.

Recipe:
  1. Carefully crack one egg, pouring the egg white into a bowl. Once the yolk is isolated, place the yolk into a mixing bowl.
  2. Add water and lemon juice and whisk to combine.
  3. Melt butter on low heat in a saucepan and in a large pot start boiling water.
  4. In the meantime, split the left-over egg white between your egg poachers, and then crack one egg into each poacher. 
  5. When the water begins to boil, reduce the heat by half and place the egg poachers into the pot.  Cover with lid.
  6. Once the butter has melted, reduce heat to the lowest setting, and slowly whisk in the yolk mix. Caution: the lemon juice will want to curdle the butter. You must keep whisking, briskly, as you add the yolk mixture.
  7. If your sauce starts to curdle, remove it from the heat and add just a dash of cold water and continue to whisk quickly.
  8. Your end result should be a creamy and smooth sauce. Add salt to taste, and a sprinkle of pepper for good measure. 
  9. Keep the sauce on the lowest heat setting.
  10. Take two slices of tomato and toast them on high heat in a skillet. Just enough to sear the surface; shouldn’t take long at all.
  11. Slice and lightly toast two slices of Irish soda bread.
  12. Place toast on a plate, top with the tomato slices. Make sure the poached eggs are drained of any condensation, and then place the eggs on the toast and tomato. Cover with hollandaise sauce, and top with parsley.
Enjoy!




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