I have always shied away from eating Eggs Benedict. I don’t know if it was the poached egg or the Hollandaise sauce, or both, but they just weren’t for me. When we bought our Bed and Breakfast, I decided that you really couldn’t own an Inn and NOT offer some type of Eggs Benedict. After much experimenting over the six years we’ve been here, we now offer two to our guests. The first is a more classic Bene with a mock hollandaise (we’ll share that recipe at some point). This second one is something that I’ve been working on for a few months now and I think it’s THERE!
Inspiration came from a salad I had at 50 Local in Kennebunk which had a deep fat fried poached egg on top. I had to try it because I wanted to see how you deep fry a poached egg. Much to my surprise, the egg worked really well with the salad ingredients. I refuse to deep fat fry anything, so we poach our eggs the old fashioned way…..in deep boiling water with a good glug of white vinegar in the water. 3 minutes at a gentle boil is about perfect. The secret to a keeping a poached egg in perfect form? Fresh eggs. Buy the freshest you can find and they’ll hold their shape. Make sure to use a slotted spoon to remove them from the water and drain on a towel to get rid of the excess water before putting on top of your vegetables.
You can use ham or bacon with Eggs Benedict, but I think the bacon overwhelms this one so we’ve stuck with ham. I’ve tried several different breads to find the one that we like best. Ciabatta is too hard to cut, Challah is a little too sweet. The Focaccia works the best for us. But please experiment with what you like. For veggies, I’ve written the recipe exactly as we serve it, but again, you can experiment with whatever you like.
The sauce is our cross between salad dressing (remember the egg on the salad I mentioned earlier?) and hollandaise. It’s much lighter and full of great flavors. When you put all of these Bene ingredients together, something short of magic is created! We hope you enjoy as much as our guests do.
To make the sauce, combine the creams, dill, lemon juice, zest and Sriracha sauce. Mix well. We make ours the day before and put into a container with a nozzle so we can drizzle on top of eggs.
Have all of your ingredients prepped so you can just assemble the Bene when the eggs are poached.
To assemble, we start with the toasted bread, add a slice of hot/cooked ham. Top with Arugula and tomatoes. Sprinkle the diced onions and capers on top.
Drain your poached egg and place on top of the veggies. Drizzle sauce on top and serve immediately.