Eggs Royale – Serves 2
4 eggs
2 english muffins, halved / 4 slices of good bread – toasted
Smoked Salmon
For the Hollandaise:
2 egg yolks
1.5 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 peppercorns
juice of one lemon (get two just in case)
110g butter, melted
salt and pepper
required: clingfilm
Method:
- Start with prepping your eggs for poaching. What follows is the most fool proof method in the world for poaching eggs – if you take one thing out of this blog post, take this. Take a large square of cling film and lay over a teacup. Poke the clingfilm a little bit inside the cup so there is a bit of a dip, where you can crack an egg into. Oil the clingfilm with some vegetable oil. Crack an egg into it. Gather the sides of the cling film up, squeezing out any air and twist to make a little egg parcel!! Do this for all your eggs and set to one side. This way you can cook all of your eggs at exactly the same time and you have no risk of them coming apart in the water/sitting around while you cook the rest!! Plus they are always, consistently the perfect shape. See the video for a bit more help.
- Set a pan of water on to boil.
- Now, it's time to start your Hollandaise. This is where things get tricky and you have to be in the zone with your timings! Take a small saucepan and put the vinegar and peppercorns in it. Reduce over heat for 30 seconds until it has reduced by half. Remove the peppercorns and set to one side.
- Set up a bain marie – place a sauce pan with about 2 inches of water in it over medium heat and get a glass bowl that fits in the top of it without touching the metal bottom of the pan ready. In the bowl place the vinegar and two eggs, place over the saucepan and continuously whisk until the egg yolks thicken, and go pale and creamy. Make sure that the heat doesn't get too fierce and occasionally take it off the heat to whisk it. You want the eggs to reach a 'ribbon' stage so that you can see the trails that the whisk has left in it, after the whisk is removed. This will take about 2 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and add about 2 tablespoons, or a trickle, of the melted butter to it and whisk immediately to combine it in. Then put it back over the heat and continue to whisk. Repeat. Back on heat, whisk. Do this continuously, always always whisking until all of the butter is combined. Be very careful not to add the butter to fast or to get it too hot. If you do this the sauce will split – the butter and the yolks (oil and fat) will come apart from each other and it will look like scrambled egg – not what you want and totally irredeemable!!! Take your time with this stage – it's the tricky bit! Don't worry if it is very thick – when you add the lemon juice it thins it out.
- When your sauce is just about finished toast your muffins and put on your eggs to poach for 3 minutes.
- Finish the sauce by adding the juice of one lemon, whisking again and seasoning with salt and pepper. Taste to see if you need more lemon or seasoning!
- Remove the eggs after 3 minutes, remove the cling film and serve. They should have beautiful molten centres!
- Plate by laying the toasted muffins on a plate, then a slice of smoked salmon on top of each, then the poached egg. Finish by spooning the sauce over generously.
ENJOY
