How to get an egg Benedict. A one-egg Benedict.

I may have mentioned before that my favorite typical diner breakfast is eggs Benedict, but that I don't often order it because it's always too big.

 

This is the nature of eggs Benedict, because it is usually made on an English muffin. An English muffin is split into halves. Each half is topped with a slice of ham. Each slice of ham is topped with a poached or over-easy egg. Each egg is topped with a generous spoonful of silky hollandaise sauce. And there you go: a beautiful breakfast, but it's twice as big as what I can eat first thing in the morning. At least if I plan on having lunch later.

I have tried asking for half a Benedict. This innocent request has actually been rejected by actual hash-slingers, on the grounds that a Benedict consumes an integer number of English muffins.

(Personally, although I do enjoy a good English muffin, I have learned rather to like a Benedict made on whole-grain toast, especially if it has a lot of hemp seeds and such in it. But the two-egg Benedict still reigns, even when the toast may be substituted.)

I can't share eggs Benedict with anyone because I am usually eating restaurant breakfasts alone. I can't box it up and take it home because I am usually going out to run errands afterwards, and I am not at all confident in the food safety of a poached egg sitting warmly in my car with an egg-yolk-and-butter sauce. And I just can't throw it away. So I generally save the two-eggs Benedict experience for when I am not getting around to breakfast until 10:30 or 11 and I can call it brunch.

Anyway, this morning I found myself at a South Minneapolis diner wishing for a Benedict. I swam a mile this morning before getting here, so I was good and hungry, but still -- at 8:30 a.m., I try to stick with the "one egg is enough eggs for me" mantra.

And then I had an inspiration!

Here at this diner, as at so many diners, the omelettes and scrambles are three-egg omelettes and scrambles. The breakfast sandwiches and huevos rancheros are two-egg breakfast sandwiches and dos-huevos huevos rancheros. So sad! I am always having to leave half my breakfast behind.

But the kids' menu at this diner, as at so many diners, has a meal with "one egg, toast, and choice of meat!"

I decided to order for myself from the kids' menu, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. LIKE A BOSS.

Number 50, please. Egg over easy, with ham, and let the toast be seven-grain.

Plus a side of hollandaise sauce.

And a side salad. Since your "whole menu is available all day."

And coffee.

I mentally prepared myself to have my eligibility for a children's meal challenged.

I even rehearsed a retort in my head: "I may be an adult, but I'm a child-sized adult."

(It's true. My son was taller than me before he maxed out on children's menu eligibility.)

But my brazen confidence paid off and Zing! Moments later I was assembling my own egg Benedict.

Nothing is impossible!

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Comments

[GeekLady]

I love eggs Benedict too (and I'm a two egg minimum breakfaster) but we very rarely go out to eat just for expense purposes. So I've taken to making them at home.

English muffins are a great post-Mass breakfast, you can mix them, let them rise while you're at Mass, then grill them when you get home. Joe Pastry has a recipe that's better than anything you'll find in a store. You don't need muffin rings either, you can just plop the batter straight on. They won't be round, but I hate cleaning the muffin rings more than I need round muffins.

I make one yolk's worth of hollandaise in a mini double boiler I rig out of a stainless steel 1 cup measure and a glass pinch bowl. The proportions are 1 yolk, 1/2-1 tsp lemon juice, 2 Tbsp butter. Salt and cayenne to taste. Whisk the yolk and lemon juice together in the double boiler till it starts to thicken, then whisk in the butter in half tablespoons. If it gets too thick, you can thin it down again by dribbling in warm water.

And I fry up and use whatever ham is hanging out in the fridge. (Usually it's lunchmeat, but it tastes just fine.)

As a breakfast, this actually isn't a ton of work, the worst is the extra pan from the poached eggs, since no one else ever wants poached. I set Mike to cooking the scrambled or fried eggs and browning the ham after the muffins are done while I attend to my eggs and sauce.

[Rebekka]

I've never tasted eggs Benedict, wasn't even sure what it was. But it sounds yummy.

[entropy]

LIKE A BOSS LOL.

Good for you! That is awesome.

[Kelly]

I've ordered off the kid's menu the few times we've gone to some pancake place like IHOP. It seems like every single adult item has 4 pancakes, 2 eggs, and a few pieces of meat. They're all twice as much as I would normally eat. The kid's menu is one pancake with an egg and piece of sausage. Perfect! The first time I worried about it, like you, but my server said "I don't care--order whatever you want!" and I never looked back!

[Kelly]

PS-It cracks me up every time you mention hemp toast. I know I live in the middle of nowhere, but even when I've eaten at the closest Big City I have never seen such a thing on the menu. Is it only served in places with Bob Marley posters on the wall?

[bearing]

Re: hemp toast, I don't know, but one of my favorite places to eat here in Mpls bakes their own bread, and one of their specialties is called "Healthy Hemp Bread." It's a dark sourdough with lots of seeds in it and I adore it.