Eggs Bennedict and Hollandaise Sauce

 
Great Holiday Breakfast
Serves 8-12
 
Hollandaise Sauce:
This sauce is a ‘base sauce’.  Other sauces are made by just adding different ingredients or reductions to this.
Note: You can downsize the number of servings proportionately: 2 oz butter per 1 egg yoke:
1 lb salted butter (must be salted)
12 large eggs for sauce: we’ll use yokes only, you can cook the whites for your dogs or whatever (1 egg yoke per person you are feeding)
¼ cup white Zinfendel (or any white wine of preference)
¼ teaspoon worchershire
A few shoots (drops) Tabasco sauce (1/4 tsp)
Sprinkle of cayenne pepper (or a red pepper)
2 tablespoons Fresh lemon juice (must be fresh squeezed – not lemon juice from a bottle)
 
Eggs: (2 eggs for each person)
16 slices Canadian bacon or ham of choice (2 for each egg)
Water for boiling eggs
1-tablespoon vinegar (or pickle juice)
8 English muffins cut in half
Little butter for buttering muffins
16 eggs
sprinkle paprika

	Steps: you better be fast for this or have some helpers: 1.  Melt the butter for sauce: do not boil (note:  when you do step 4, butter should be about same temperature as whipped egg yokes: you can melt in microwave) 2.  Separate 12 eggs to obtain yokes only into a “metal Bowl”: no whites must be mixed in it.  We won’t be using the whites.  add the zinfandel, worchershire, Tabasco, cayenne, and lemon juice to the eggs yokes in the metal bowl.
	3.  Whip the eggs for about 10 min by hand hard, or preferably a beginner should use a mixer.  With a speed max of 10 on your mixer: mix at speed 6 for 3 min. Then turn to high and mix 1 min. more.  At this point egg yokes are medium yellow in color and getting thick. 4.  At the same time, as step 3: get a double boiler of water boiling: or if you don’t have a double boiler- – use a small kettle of water, and place a metal bowl on top of it (must be metal).  This is for the sauce.
	5. At the same time, start warming a kettle of water for poaching the eggs, put in 1 tablespoon vinegar (or pickle juice) to keep the eggs from breaking while they poach. 6.  Put whipped egg mixture from step 3 which is in a metal bowl on top of the kettle of boiling water or double boiler.  Whip continually as you ‘drizzle slowly’ the melted butter from step 1 into the mixture. (See Tip in # 7) (note: melted butter should be warm – about same temperature as warmed eggs.   Do not overheat, or eggs will start to ‘scramble or chunk’.  This step is critical to the consistency of the sauce.  This process should just take a few minutes, and now the egg mixture should be a ‘pale yellow’.
	Remember, you must whip continually or your eggs will chunk and begin to scramble and DO NOT BOIL!!
	7. Tip: The foam at the top of the melted butter and the water at the bottom, should also be drizzled into the whipped eggs, this is what gives the added salt and adds to the flavor. 8.  Sauce is made, keep warm on double boiler: at same time: poach eggs to desired temperature: toast and butter muffins: fry ham for a few minutes in a lightly buttered frying pan 9.  Assemble: muffin:  ham: Eggs and sauce: sprinkle paprika .
	Assemble: muffin:  ham: Eggs and sauce: sprinkle paprika .

Here is a Bonus Recipe based on this Hollandaise Sauce

Béarnaise Sauce 

Put over vegetables like asparagus or seafood, like grilled salmon:
Make base sauce: See hollandaise sauce
Make a reduction:
Put 2 tablespoons tarragon in ½ cup red wine vinegar. See pic 7
Heat on medium until still moist, not dry.
Whip this mixture into the hollandaise sauce.
Keep warm, do not boil:
Serve over vegetables (asparagus) or seafood (salmon)