Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict
Smoked salmon eggs Benedict stacks toasted English muffin halves with slices of cold-smoked salmon, a poached egg, and a generous pour of homemade hollandaise sauce. The hollandaise is built by whisking egg yolks and lemon juice over a gentle bain-marie, then drizzling in melted butter slowly enough for the mixture to emulsify into a thick, pourable sauce. Too much heat scrambles the yolks and breaks the emulsion, so the water bath must stay well below a simmer. Poaching requires barely trembling water with a splash of vinegar, which helps the whites coagulate quickly around the yolk - three and a half minutes produces set whites with a still-runny center. The smoked salmon's salty, cured depth plays against the hollandaise's rich butteriness, and the yolk breaking over everything acts as a second sauce.
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Instructions
- 1
Melt butter and keep warm; split and toast the muffins until golden.
- 2
Whisk 2 egg yolks with lemon juice over bain-marie until thickened.
- 3
Slowly drizzle in melted butter to make hollandaise; season with salt and pepper.
- 4
Add vinegar to barely simmering water and poach 2 eggs at a time for 3.5 minutes.
- 5
Layer salmon and poached eggs on muffins, then spoon over generous hollandaise.
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