Eggs Benedict

Every Friday during the last few months that Sarah and I lived in Chicago, my friends from work and I would grab breakfast at Ceres Cafe in the Chicago Board of Trade building. The tradition was to get Eggs Benedict. Every once in a while I get a craving for Eggs Benedict again, so I recently learned how to make it myself.

Eggs Benedict is topped with hollandaise sauce. Rather than make up a whole batch of sauce from a powder packet, I learned to just make a small bit from scratch.

Hollandaise Sauce

• 1 egg
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp butter
• dash of cayenne pepper
• dash of salt

Whisk the egg and lemon juice in a metal bowl. Carefully melt the butter in the microwave. Simmer a small amount of water in a small sauce pan. Place the metal bowl with egg and lemon over the simmering water. While stirring constantly, pour in the butter. Continue stirring until the volume roughly doubles. Stir in the cayenne pepper and salt and set aside.

Eggs Benedict

• 1 english muffin
• 2 slices cheese
• 2 slices canadian bacon
• 2 eggs
• hollandaise sauce

Poach the eggs as follows: Bring water to a gentle boil in a medium saucepan. Add a little bit of vinegar to the water. Crack the eggs into the water and let them sit for about 3 minutes. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon.

During the 3 minutes that the eggs are poaching, split the english muffin and toast both halves and grill/warm/fry the canadian bacon. On top of each half of english muffin layer a slice of cheese, canadian bacon, and a poached egg. Top with hollandaise sauce and season with a little salt and pepper.

The cheese isn't critical, so those of you that avoid cheese can just leave it out. I calculate that each eggs benedict (the above recipe making 2) has about 350 calories (with cheese), so don't go too crazy on them.