How to make... Eggs Benedict!

Hi, I'm YouTube's Donald Skehan, and I hear you're looking for a great breakfast recipe. Here's a doozy. Eggs Benedict is an absolute classic brunch recipe, and it is comprised of toasted English muffins, beautiful sharp and buttery hollandaise sauce, and creamy poached eggs. And a little bit of savoury ham as well. It is simple to make, but you need to take time and concentrate. I've two eggs in a large heatproof bowl, give them a good whisk up, and we're going to stick these over a pan of simmering water. So as this simmers away and starts to heat up, we're going to add one or two knobs of butter, and slowly but surely this is going to melt into our sauce. Right, we're going to add more butter in, and you kind of have to keep doing it and keep going, and you'll notice that the sauce starts to thicken up under the heat, or over the heat. And it's just a case of adding more and more butter until you have a nice voluptuous sauce. So I'm adding my final little bit of butter in here, and once that's melted down, we have a fantastic hollandaise sauce that just needs a kick of flavour from some lemon juice and some sea salt. I'm going to take it off the heat at this point. Give this a last whisk through, and you can see how beautiful and yellow that hollandaise sauce is. It just needs to be hit with a tiny touch of lemon juice. Give that lemon a little bit of a roll on the board, and a quick squeeze. It only needs about a teaspoon of lemon juice, and if you're doing this squeezing it straight in, do do it through your hands so you get any of those tips left. Okay, that should do me. A little hit of some sea salt in here will make all the difference in terms of flavour. You could add a bit of black pepper in there, but I don't think the purists would be too happy. Give it a last little whisk through. It should maintain that thickness even when you add the lemon juice, and that, my friend, is a very delicious and simple hollandaise sauce. Set this aside. We now need to talk about our poaching liquid for our eggs. I have this come to a rolling simmer, and you don't want it to be a really hard boil. You want it to be a nice, steady simmer. Keep it on a low temperature. We're adding a tablespoon of white wine vinegar. Now, the theory is that a tablespoon of white wine vinegar and the pinch of salt I'm going to add now will make all the difference to bringing your poached eggs together. The method I use is slightly different because normally everyone goes in there and swirls it around. I'm just swirling it very gently to dissolve the salt, but I don't actually swirl my water. I just pop my egg in very gently because it is poached eggs are something that not everyone gets right. So this is my little trick, and it's the way I always make my poached eggs. It's always a very simple one, and even if you've never poached an egg before, this method, I hope I can guarantee, will work for you. So, in a little cup, bring your cup right to the edge of the water and just drop it on in. Okay, my egg has had its time, and there is a tendency when they come out of the water that they look a little bit miserable, so if you have these little extra bits that are around the sides, just use a butter knife and chop it off so you have a nice edge to your lovely poached egg. Fantastic. Got my poached eggs, got my hollandaise, and now it's time to assemble. I have some toasted English muffins, and we're going to just assemble these up with a little bit of ham on the bottom here. I've got nice thinly sliced pieces of ham, and they really do add a lovely savoury kick, so I always use ham, but you can do it with smoked salmon, you can add a little bit of cooked spinach in here is quite nice as well. So really this is a recipe you can adapt to your own liking, but this is more of the classic way of serving it. So we've got a nice little bit of ham, and now it's time for our fantastic poached eggs. Straight on top with your poached eggs, beautifully poached so that you have that runny yolk and nicely set egg white. Just lift them very gently on top, and what brings together this whole dish is that wonderful hollandaise sauce. Give it a last little whisk through, just so that it is nice and ready. I'm going to lose my whisk, take a big spoon, or a small spoon in this case, and just spread that over the top. Look at that. Fantastic flavours, really sharp hollandaise sauce, and when you dive through that egg yolk, you are in business. The only thing this needs now is a little fresh hit of some chives over the top. I'm just going to give them a quick snip with the scissors. I'm kind of going a little bit creative here now, but I quite like that. Just a nice little snip gives you all that wonderful sort of onion flavour, and you can give it a final touch of some black pepper, and then that, my friends, is a serious breakfast and a half. I'm going to give it that little crack of black pepper. The last thing to do now is slice right through that, so you get really nice yolk pouring. I'm going to get you to come in and have a look at this. Oh, this is what your eggs are going to do, is all of those. Dripping egg yolk, wonderful hollandaise sauce, and that savoury ham, it's just going to be delicious. It has to be one of my absolute favourite breakfasts that I now have all over my hand. It is so delicious. It's an absolute classic, and it's a very easy recipe to make. This is a brunch that is bound to impress your friends. If you want the recipe, you can check it out in the box below. Like this beautiful brunch, and of course, subscribe to this channel for lots more delicious recipes just like this one. Leave me a comment in the box below, and I'll see you soon. Goodbye. That's it now. Off you go.