Word to Your Mother (sauce that is)

Adam and I are big breakfast people.  During the week it's usually just toast or cereal, but weekends are special, and we almost always make time for a hot breakfast.  Typically this consist of eggs and bacon. You know the streaky kind, not the Irish rashers. Don't remember the difference?  You can check out The Great Bacon Debate post to refresh your memory.  Occasionally we will have waffles, pancakes, or maybe French toast in addition to our bacon and eggs. And every now and then we will go out for breakfast/brunch which I consider a real treat!

It's such a treat because 99% of the time I order the one thing I have never attempted to make in all my breakfast making days.  Eggs Benedict.  Sure I make English muffins from time to time, and I often make poached eggs, and frying up a slice of ham is a no-brainer.  So what has kept me from making my own Eggs Benedict in the comfort of my own kitchen all these years? Hollandaise sauce.  It wouldn't be Eggs Benedict without that creamy, buttery, silky, rich sauce.  With only three ingredients (egg, butter, and lemon juice) how hard could it be?  But the fear of curdling, or scrambling the sauce has had me panic-stricken to the point that I have always felt it was just best to leave it to the professionals.

That is until now.

With time on my hands, and a growing interest in expanding my culinary skills I have decided to master  attempt the 5 Mother Sauces.  What are the mother sauces you ask?  Pay attention now, I'm pretty sure this is a Trivial Pursuit question!  The 5 sauces are:

1. Hollandaise (butter emulsion sauce)

2. Bechamel (white sauce made with milk, aka cream sauce)

3. Veloute (white sauce with chicken or fish stock instead of milk)

4. Espagnole (Brown Sauce)

5. Sauce Tomat (Tomato sauce)

OK, sauce lesson aside, lets get back to breakfast.  In the past I have always poached my eggs in a pan specifically designed for poaching eggs which looks something like this.  Essentially a double boiler with removable cups that make perfectly round poached eggs.

However, my egg poaching pan was not considered a necessity and therefore was left in storage in the states.  Fortunately you can poach eggs without a fancy pan! Unfortunately I'm not very good at it.  I tried all the tricks; swirling the water to create a vortex as you drop the egg in, adding a bit of white vinegar to encourage the egg to stay together, cracking them first into a small dish and delivering them gently into the water, and still my eggs turned out like this.  Most of the white still floating around in the vinegar soup or stuck to my slotted spoon.

However ugly they looked at least it did not seem to affect the taste.  Now all that was left in order to achieve Benedict nirvana was the Hollandaise sauce.  With a deep breath and a quick prayer I gently began to heat my eggs yolks. Then slowly I began incorporating the butter; and before I knew it, and much to my surprise, the sauce was looking...exactly as it should.  A splash of lemon juice, and viola SUCCESS!

Lovingly I spooned my very first mother sauce over my not-so-pretty poached eggs and delighted in the result. Hollandaise is like concealer makeup for eggs; it hides the flaws.  Served with home fries and fresh fruit my Eggs Benedict Brunch was complete.  Yummy!

So was it worth it? Yes, for the satisfaction of knowing I can do it. However, I'm fairly certain I will continue to leave this dish up to the professionals and reserve it as the treat I've always felt it to be. Mainly because whisking the sauce, poaching the eggs, and toasting and buttering the English muffin all must be done simultaneously to be certain they are each hot and fresh. That's three things at once, and that is just two things too many!