Washington, D.C.: the capital of our great nation. Teeming with senators and representatives, monuments and museums, Sasha and Malia, the District expends a lot of energy. And what sustains the (arguably) most important city in the world? Brunch. Any good yuppie, facing a long week at their start-up or non-profit, depends on Sunday brunch to inspire and enrich them. With choices ranging from waffles and mimosas to BLTs and Bloody Marys, brunch refuses to conform to socially constructions of meals and then adds alcohol.
Of all the brunch options the brunchiest is eggs Benedict. People tend to lean either towards the br- or the -unch, but eggs Benedict satisfies all. The poached egg anchors you in breakfast while the Hollandaise sauce brings you classy flair that is so essentially lunch. More importantly, it’s what my mom always orders. She calls them Bennys.
I’ve never made this before and didn’t realize what Hollandaise sauce is made of: butter!! Also, it was really challenging to get sexy pictures of this dish, please forgive me.
Ingredients:
- English muffins
- 1 stick of butter
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
- 2 egg yolks
- Avocado
- Vegetarian bacon
- Eggs
To start, I toasted an English muffin.
Eggs Benedict generally has some sort of meaty product on it which is why I tend towards the spinach-version, eggs Florentine. I thought this would be a good opportunity to try a new vegan product. The MorningStar bacon strips have been around for awhile and taste like salty cardboard, yum! I actually don’t dislike them, but these Quorn Bacon Style Slices seem a bit sturdier.
Not much effort went in to making these Quorn slices look like bacon, but I prefer their aesthetic to MorningStar’s electric red and white color scheme.
I fried them up in some oil and they began to look like shoe soles.
Soon enough they had reached cardboard status. As expected I prefer these to the MorningStar slices. Because they are thicker the inside stays slightly soft while the outer bits are crunchy.
Great avocados are like celebrities, beloved and revered but really hard to find at the supermarket. I invested in a trip to Whole Foods and it paid off. I don’t know if avocados are fundamental to eggs Benedict, but they generally improve a dish.
The next, very important step is poaching the eggs. This process is way easier than how it was depicted in the 2009 classic film, “Julie and Julia.” All you do is bring a pot of water to a gentle boil, stir the water around to create a mild tornado, and then drop the egg in. If you don’t mess with it the white will begin to congeal to itself. The egg only needs to cook for about two minutes to get that perfect, runny yolk.
*Angel chorus* This is the most beautiful picture I’ve ever taken.
Okay, to the Hollaindaise sauce. On the left is two egg yolks. On the right is a stick of melted butter and a tablespoon of lemon juice.
I slowly poured the butter into the eggs and whisked them together, perhaps a bit too vigorously. The sauce thickened just slightly more than I wanted it to. I added some pepper and it tasted really good!
I tried to drizzle the sauce on beautifully, but it just ended up glopped on top. Luckily we aren’t superficial people and can accept this eggs Benedict despite its flaws. Break that yolk open and get eating.
Enjoy!
P.S.
Here is a real shirt that I really own and really wore to brunch yesterday.
