Poached Eggs

I have never made nor have I ever eaten a poached egg. I stick to scrambled. But gws wanted eggs Benedict for his birthday and, since he doesn't ask for much, I had to oblige. I don't have a fancy egg poacher or even one of those silicone poach pod thingies, so I had to do it the old fashioned way: drop an egg into simmering water and, with great speed and delicacy, push the white over the yolk to make a graceful little pillow. To my great surprise, I only screwed up the first one. I spent too much time futzing around with the whites and THEN started the timer for 4 minutes. That yolk was cooked solid by the time it was done. The others were much easier and I received a great big thumbs up when gws cut into his egg and a golden gush of yolk spilled out.

What I didn't realize is that you can kind of make all the components to this dish, save the toasted English muffin, ahead of time. I cheated and made the Hollandaise sauce in the blender because I just couldn't be bothered with another possible failure. But the eggs can basically sit in cold water until they're ready to be reheated (in a bowl of salted hot water). And you can reheat the Hollandaise sauce too. So really, just toast the muffin, throw the ham or Canadian bacon on the skillet for a few minutes, and assemble everything. Not too shabby. I had one to try too and it wasn't that bad! I thought of it more as a sauce rather than a runny egg yolk.

*Both the poached egg instructions and blender Hollandaise sauce are courtesy of Madame Child. Merci!