pans and others use shallow frying pans filled with water.
Most chefs, including famous ones such Delia Smith, seem to agree that the perfect poached egg has a runny yolk with a hardening crust and no raw white remaining.
Poached eggs are used in Eggs Benedict and Eggs Florentine.
Eggs Benedict
Eggs Benedict is a dish consisting of halves of English muffins topped with smoked bacon or ham (traditionally back bacon, which in America is called Canadian bacon), poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. Substituting the ham or bacon with shrimp and/or crab is a popular seafood variant.
Origin
There are two main possible origins of the dish.
One version is that it was created in the late 1880s for financier LeGrand Benedict or his wife, by Charles Ranhofer, the chef of Delmonico's restaurant in New York City after one of the Benedicts complained there was nothing new on the menu. The Epicurean, Ranhofer's comprehensive 1894 cookbook, covering thirty years' worth of Delmonico's fare, contains a recipe for an essentially identical dish under the name of "Eggs à la Benedick."
Other sources state it was the result of an order placed by stockbroker Lemuel Benedict one morning in 1894 at the Waldorf Hotel when he had a hangover. Benedict claimed in an interview in The New Yorker shortly before his death that his order of dry toast, crisp bacon, poached eggs and a side of hollandaise sauce had been noted, usurped and warped by Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel there. Oscar substituted English muffins and Canadian bacon, and added truffles.
It is not named after Benedict Arnold, despite the coincidence of name and that he was "English underneath".
Variations
- Eggs Florentine is the most common variation, replacing the bacon with sauteed spinach.
- Eggs Blackstone is another common variant, substituting streaky bacon for back bacon, while adding a tomato slice.
- Eggs Hussard is the standard Benedict dish topped with Marchand de Vin sauce, a New Orleans creation.
- The McDonalds Egg McMuffin was inspired by Eggs Benedict. To launch their new breakfast service in the 1970s, they developed an "Eggs Benedict Sandwich". Since hollandaise sauce would be too runny in a sandwich, a slice of american cheese was substituted. To give the egg the appearance of being poached, it is cooked on the grill in a special ring contraption that steams the tops while frying the bottoms. Mainly due to the success of the Egg McMuffin, McDonalds had a monopoly on the fast-food breakfast market until the mid-1980s. (reference MCDONALD'S: BEHIND THE ARCHES by John F. Love - Bantam Books, 1986, 1995)
- A version of Artichokes Benedict has been created for the South Beach Diet, substituting cooked fresh artichokes for the muffins and using a mock hollandaise sauce to create a breakfast that is lower in carbohydrates and cholesterol than the original.
- There is now an Eggs Benedict XVI, created to honor the German background of the recently elected pope. Sauerbraten or sausage and rye bread are the eggs' accompaniments.
- Slices of toast may be used instead of the traditional English muffins.
- French fries or hashbrowns may be served on the side.
- American Southern Style is also another variation in which country gravy is substituted for hollandaise sauce, and biscuits are substituted for the English muffins. Canadian bacon, ham, or regular bacon is used along with eggs typically cooked sunny side up.
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