This is quite a bit off my usual topics of startups and tech, but a good friend of mine asked for the recipe and I figured I’d write it up here for posterity. It’s an eggs Benedict recipe I put together out of a few others that I can no longer find, and that I have made many times. I’ll also describe a nice keto/LCHF variation on the recipe.

Eggs benedict, bacon, strawberries.

Ingredients (2 portions)

  • 1 avocado
  • 2 English muffins, or - for English-muffin-starved Icelanders, two halves of a “skonsa” from Ömmubakstur
  • 5 eggs
  • A bit of lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon 4% table vinegar (borðedik) or 1/3rd of that, about one tap, if you get vinegar acid (ediksýra, 14%)
  • A couple or a few slices of ham
  • 80g butter
  • A bit of Dijon mustard
  • Optional:
    • Cayenne pepper
    • Smoked paprika powder
    • 4-8 pieces of bacon
    • Strawberries and/or blueberries and/or a green salad for the side

Implements

You will need:

  • A smallish, deep bowl like a breakfast cereal bowl
  • A medium-sized whisk (not too large to use in that bowl)
  • A small saucepan that takes about 1.5 liters, and ideally has a handle and a “lip” or a spout for pouring
  • If your saucepan doesn’t have a lip or spout that will let you pour a thin stream of melted butter, you’ll also need a separate jug or similar, with a lip or spout
  • A kettle or a separate saucepan to boil water
  • A small glass, large enough for an egg but ideally not much larger

Method

First off, do some prep:

  1. Bring up two plates, put a toasted English muffin on each, or half a “skonsa” (without toasting), or a piece of freshly-toasted toast with some butter on it.
  2. Spread a bit of Dijon mustard on the bread, to taste; I like about a teaspoon on each.
  3. Add a slice or two of ham on top of the mustard
  4. Halve the avocado, remove the stone, slice each half into 6-10 long slices, and “fan” the slices over the bread and ham
  5. Put the butter in your saucepan and bring it to quick heat. You can turn the heat off once it starts sizzling
  6. While the butter is melting, boil about 1 liter of water in your kettle

Optional, make your bacon:

  1. Take a baking sheet out of the oven
  2. You can use aluminum foil, or just place your bacon directly on the baking sheet
  3. Arrange your bacon on the baking sheet
  4. Turn your oven to fan-assist, 180C and put the baking sheet in
  5. Set a timer for 10 minutes and then start checking regularly, but once you get used to the recipe, the bacon will be ready at more or less the same time as your eggs below

Next, make your hollandaise sauce:

  1. Separate one egg and place the yolk in a smallish, deep bowl, like a breakfast cereal bowl. To separate the egg, I find it simplest to crack it carefully in two, leaving the yolk in one half, then use the cracked shell to allow the white to drop to a separate bowl if you want to store it, or straight into the trash if not.
  2. Add about 1/3rd of the volume of the yolk of lemon juice to your bowl
  3. Season with a bit of salt and optionally a fair bit of cayenne pepper, this goes well with the other ingredients but can be skipped
  4. Put a folded dishtowel under your bowl, this makes it easier to whisk without the bowl flying away or starting to turn once your hollandaise sauce starts to get thick
  5. Whisk the yolk and lemon juice until light and fluffy
  6. If you don’t have a lip or spout on your saucepan that will let you pour a thin stream of melted butter, you need to first transfer the melted butter to some kind of jug that you can easily pour a thin stream out of
  7. Pour a thin stream of melted butter into the bowl while whisking hard the entire time. The sauce should start to thicken and become an emulsion. If you’re ever unsure if it’s mixing well enough, stop pouring and whisk for a while, then keep pouring. This takes a couple of minutes and you can get a bit tired from whisking the first few times you make the recipe.
  8. Wait a couple of minutes (you can start on the poached eggs), then put the sauce into the microwave for 15 seconds at 800W
  9. Whisk it again, then it can stand for a bit before you put everything together.

Start your poached eggs as soon as you’ve finished step #7 above:

  1. Clean your saucepan
  2. Take the water you boiled and pour in about 1 liter, and bring the water to a rolling boil
  3. Add your vinegar - either 1 cap of “ediksýra” (14%) or 3 caps of “borðedik” (4%), that’s about a tablespoon of basic vinegar
  4. Crack one of your eggs into your small glass, then use the glass to carefully unload the egg into the boiling water
  5. Repeat for your other 3 eggs
  6. Boil for 2m30s for yolks that are still quite runny, 2m45s for yolks that have started to firm up but still have a runny middle
  7. Fish your poached eggs out of the water using a slotted spoon or a fish ladle, shaking them a bit to get most of the water off; you can plate them directly from here.

Plate it all up:

  1. Two poached eggs on top of each bread
  2. One tablespoon of sauce on top of each egg, then divvy up the rest if there is any
  3. Optionally, a dusting of smoked paprika over the sauce
  4. 4-5 washed and cut strawberries and/or a handful of blueberries and/or a bit of spinach as a side on each plate
  5. Optionally, a few pieces of bacon, you can arrange them like a house of cards over the eggs Bene

Voila!

Keto/LCHF variant

Pretty simple, very tasty and about 4-6g carbs depending on how you do the sides:

  • Instead of bread, use 3-4 slices of ham and put the dijon on top of that, then the avocado
  • For the side, use just one medium strawberry cut up small, or just a few blueberries, and an additional half of an avocado plus some bacon, or go with just spinach, depending on how hungry you are