There's More Than One Way to Cook an Egg

 

There’s More Than One Way to Cook an Egg

So why can’t I find a place where they can poach an egg?!

Eggs Benedict with a glass of champagne on Sunday morning makes me very happy. We have a favorite restaurant for brunch, The Country Gourmet in Sunnyvale. It’s geographically convenient, it’s busy but calm, parking is a snap and the patio dining is sunny and pleasant. The food is generally very good and the staff is lovely.

The staff on weekend mornings is mainly comprised of teenagers. When they are taking your order and you ask if your eggs can be cooked in a certain way, you may as well be asking what opera is playing in Santa Fe. I’ve mentioned that CG checks all the boxes and their eggs Benedict checks a lot of the boxes too.

No hard English muffin with edges engineered to cut your mouth to shreds but a rich toasted biscuit The Canadian bacon is sauteed, and the Hollandaise sauce is smooth and lemony – almost as good as the sauce I make. But………..the eggs!!! A poached egg should have a completely solid white and the yolk needs to be liquid. Yes, a soft yolk is a must.

Honestly, when the eggs come and the yolk is hard (determined by touching the top of the egg with a fork and there’s no give), I have sent them back. Whoa! You can just hear the conversation in the kitchen now. Eggs not soft enough?!, we’ll give her soft! Yep, out they come quite raw with runny whites. Actually inedible. So, the search begins to find a place for a brunch spot checking all the boxes, with eggs Benedict checking all the boxes too.

Here’s my Hollandaise sauce recipe:

3 egg yolks

1 and ½ to 2 tablespoons of lemon juice

¼ tsp. salt

a dash of Tabasco

1 stick of butter

Blend first four ingredients, and with blender still on slowly drizzle in the hot melted butter.

This sauce is also great over steamed broccoli, cauliflower or asparagus.

May all your eggs be sunny side up and your Hollandaise sauce be forever smooth!