Benedict

If these pictures could talk, and I believe they just might, they would say to you, "This is how to make Florentine, and this is what it looks like." And once pictures start talking, it's hard to get them to shut up, and they would continue to say, "This is how to make Hollandaise, and this is what it essentially is, and this is what it looks like." And now that the pictures are on a roll we must cut off their mic and drag them off the stage because now they will say as they're being dragged off, "And this is Benedict, and this is how we break as many received rules as we break eggs, and this is what it looks like." And now yelling from behind the stage curtain, " Have you noticed how the first two things are named after places but the third is named after a bunch of monks? "

Benedict is not named after the monastic order, or maybe it is. Like everything good in the culinary world, outliers clamor to glom onto the success and claim credit, they're often deluded. Was it Lemuel Benedict ordering it at the Waldorf, or was it Commodore Benedict the yachtsman? Let's be reasonable, it was most likely derived from œufs bénédictine, an earlier dish, French, as you can see, who have a bad habit of not capitalizing their proper adjectives. And that name very likely referred to the monastic order as it contained salt cod, olive oil, and milk suggesting the practice of avoiding meat on Fridays, which was a Catholic proscription until very recently.

So given all that, the disputes and the variations, I feel it my duty to extemporize in accordance with my own preferences, my individual creative genius, and my own whim. Plus what I happen to have on hand at the moment. Or what was on sale. Or on ingredients somebody gave me.

Did you know an English muffin is properly pan fried sourdough bread? I have sourdough bread that has been baked, already available and sitting right here, so there is no point in working up a batch just for this. And there is no point in frying it either since mine is already baked. Add to that my strong preference for my own bread, and well, there ya go. I wonder what the British think of us calling these lazy-ass pan-fried bread things English. Do you think they're offended or amused? The British do not claim them. They were invented by an American. It's like Swiss meatballs. The Swiss never heard of them. How dare us invent something so no-class and then attach another nationality to them. That's why they hate us. Think of anything like that: Irish stew, Canadian bacon, French fries or toast, Italian bread, Polish sausage, and chances are, those countries had nothing to do with them.

As a friend says, "But I digest."

I'm talking about what these photos would say.

They'd say eggs Benedict is good, yes, but ask yourself, "Who is cleaning up?" Is it really worth making two sauces, cooking eggs two different ways, chopping, grating, poaching, preparing specialized bread, and stacking it all up into attractive mounds when those mounds are going to mush together into one huge messy conglomeration on your plate once you get working on slicing through the meat and the bread and the yolks break open spilling out into the sauce creating a bread, meat, egg stew that slops around on your plate? You better have hired a dishwasher. I would honestly rather have separate tidy piles of Florentine spinach, ham, eggs and toast. Pick one sauce, and stick with it.

Although it is kind of fun.

Florentine.

* Minced onion and garlic into a small pot with a scant Tablespoon of flour and a Tablespoon of butter. Sweat and heat through. Toast the flour, cook into a roux.

* A half Cup of milk. Bring to simmer. This forms a loose sauce.

* Chop desired amount of spinach and add it to the pot to wilt.

* Grate Parmigiano Reggiano cheese . Remove the pot from the heat and add the cheese. With salt and pepper, this finishes the Florentine mixture. It would be good in a little pile all by itself. Consider sprinkling it with nutmeg.

Ta daaaaaaa.

Hollandaise.

Hollandaise is exactly like mayonnaise, and I mean zakly like mayonnaise, 'cept diff'ern't. Like mayonnaise, you're adding oil to whipped eggs slowly at first then steadily drizzled. The difference is, lemon juice instead of vinegar, and butter instead of vegetable oil. Here, I substituted 1/2 olive oil for butter, so my mixture was 50/50 butter and olive oil. Same difference. Salt and pepper finishes. Like most all dressings, it's a combination of oil and acid. It's heated. But then, your store-bought mayonnaise is also heated. It seems scary, but it's not. It's simple and it's fun and it magic. Teach your children this, they'll love you for it. Kids love magic.

While using the double boiler (bowl set above barely simmering water), the egg can cook within seconds. You'll notice as you're stirring, the portion that rises up the side of the bowl by your whipping action has a tendency to cook first. When this happens, simply remove the bowl from the double boiler as soon as you notice cooking occurring and continue whipping the mixture being sure to incorporate that portion that is beginning to cook back into the mixture. Return the bowl to the double boiler (the top of the gently simmering pot) and continue merrily on your way. If your mixture turns out too thick, as mine did, add trace amount of water and whisk it in. Salt and pepper, and whatever else strikes your fancy. It'll blow your socks off.

* lemon juice and egg yolks into a bowl to be fitted above a pot of gently simmering water.

* whisked.

* butter / olive oil dripped in, then drizzled in, then dumped in while whisking.

* the immersion blender is not useful for this because the bowl is too shallow and it flings sauce all over the kitchen. Guess how I would know this.

Ta daaaaaaa.

Benedict

* Trimmed sourdough slices instead of so-called English muffins. Ha ha ha ha ha. English. That kills me.

* Honey baked ham instead of Canadian bacon or regular bacon or cod, for that matter.

* So there's two substitutions right there. Deviance from canon that would get me kicked out of culinary school. But if I was kicked out of culinary school for creative deviance, then I would mock my teachers, I would say, "This is why you're stuck teaching instead of running a five star restaurant you narrow minded provincial precisian martinet! Then I would pop the flat of my hand over my mouth making that hollow "POP" sound, as an audial explanation point, glare menacingly, spin on my heel, and abruptly exit. In my mind.