Eggs Benedict: hollandaise that refuses to split
One of the most famous brunch dishes, and the one where most people give up at the sauce. Hollandaise is an emulsion of yolks and butter, and emulsions have one weakness: heat. Above about 75 °C the yolks scramble and the sauce becomes egg with fat in it. Everything else here is poached eggs and a toasted muffin. Make the sauce first — it will wait somewhere warm; a poached egg will not wait at all.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Hollandaise 12 min
- Eggs 10 min
- Assembly 8 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMelt the butter and set up the bain-marie
Melt the butter and let it cool until warm but not hot (about 50–60 °C — you can hold a finger in it for a moment). Bring 3 cm of water to the boil in a pan and reduce it to a bare tremble. The bowl you set on top must not touch the water — the sauce is heated by steam, not by boiling water.
Ingredients: 3 pcs egg yolks · 150 g butter · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 1 tbsp water · ½ tsp salt · 1 pinch cayenne pepper
TipVery hot butter poured into warmed yolks easily overheats and scrambles them. Warm butter gives you a few seconds of margin, and that is enough for the emulsion to take.
Whisk the yolks over steam
Whisk the yolks in the bowl with a spoon of water and the lemon juice. Set it over the steam and whisk 3–4 minutes, until the mixture has clearly gained volume, pales and briefly holds the mark of the whisk. Lift the bowl off the pan for a few seconds now and then.
TipThe test: draw the whisk across the base of the bowl. If you see the bottom for a fraction of a second, the yolks are ready for butter.
Pale and fluffy, holding the whisk markPour the butter in a thin stream
Take the bowl off the pan and pour in the lukewarm butter in a very thin stream, whisking constantly. The first third decides everything — add it almost drop by drop. Season with salt, cayenne and lemon. Keep it somewhere warm, covered, but not over heat.
TipSplit it? Whisk a fresh yolk with a teaspoon of water over steam in a clean bowl and add the broken sauce to it a spoon at a time, whisking all the while. It usually comes back.
The first third almost drop by dropPoach the eggs
Bring water and vinegar to the boil in a wide pan and reduce to a bare tremble. Crack each egg first into a fine sieve (the thin watery white drains off), tip it into a cup and slide it into the water. Poach in batches of 2, 3 minutes per batch (about 8 minutes in all), and lift onto a towel with a slotted spoon.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 1 tbsp vinegar · 2000 ml water
Three minutes in barely trembling waterToast the muffins and warm the ham
Split and toast the muffins (ideally while the last batch of eggs is poaching) and butter them. Warm the ham 30 seconds in a dry pan — it changes the dish more than it sounds: a cold slice chills both the egg and the sauce.
Ingredients: 2 pcs English muffins · 100 g ham · 20 g butter · 1 tbsp chives
Warm muffin, warm ham, then the eggAssemble and serve at once
On each muffin half lay the ham, then the drained egg, spoon over two tablespoons of sauce and finish with chives. Serve immediately: hollandaise thickens and loses its shine within five minutes.
Two spoons of sauce per egg, straight to the table
Before you start
Blender hollandaise
Yolks, lemon and salt in a tall jug, stick blender on the bottom, and pour in hot butter in a thin stream while slowly raising the blender. Thirty seconds, and almost no risk of splitting.
The classic variations
With smoked salmon instead of ham it is eggs royale, with wilted spinach eggs florentine. The sauce and the technique stay the same.
Getting the timing right
Make the sauce first and hold it in a thermos or over warm (not hot) water for up to 30 minutes. Put the muffins in the toaster and the ham in the pan while the last batch of eggs is poaching — that way everything is ready at once and nothing goes cold.
How much butter
This recipe works out at about 50 g of butter per yolk — a light, stable sauce. Classic proportions go up to 80 g per yolk; with more butter pour it in even more slowly, and loosen a sauce that gets too thick with a teaspoon of warm water.
