Southwestern Style Eggs Benedict

I have Pablano fever right now, or "P1N1" as its known in the educated circles of history. The only cure....Eggs Benedict with a Roasted Pablano Hollandaise! Drop it likes it hot! (but don't actually drop it).

So Eggs Benedict consists of a half of an English Muffin topped with Canadian Bacon (or just regular bacon), poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. We altered the classic recipe slightly by adding a piece of roasted Pablano Pepper to the mix, and flavoring our hollandaise with the roasted pepper as well. We served it with a spicy little potato hash.

(I did this yesterday and it was super easy and took less than an hour, so I'm going to keep the internet blogging short and sweet )

Step One: Roast Pablano Peppers. Just put them on the grill or under the broiler and "char 'em up good". When completely black, put in a zip lock and set aside. Wait 20 minutes and simply peel off the skin and rinse under water to remove the seeds.

Video!

Step Two: Make the Hollandaise. Ok everybody, I have an admission to make. We made lazy man's Hollandaise rather than classical french "slave over a double boiler" Hollandaise. I know everyone is dissapointed in me....but I can live wth it becasue I had essentially perfect Hollindaise in like 6 minutes! Heres how you do it. Cut up a stick of butter and put it in the Microwave. It needs to be pretty darn hot.

Get two eggs yolks out of the eggs wrappers (shells) and put them in a blender along with the juice of one lemon. We used a Meyer Lemon, which is an awesome Lemon native to China. (who knew?)

Pulse the egg yolks and lemon juice with salt, pepper and cayanne from Pendery's 5 or 6 times, and slowly pour in the piping hot butter into the mix while the blender is running.

It should look like something like this (not my picture ps, but this is what it looks like). I'm not actually sure how this works, and yes I have made Hollandaise the old fashioned way, but I'm pretty sure the scalding hot butter, essentially cooks the egg yolks slowly and evenly due to the motion of the blender. It like a self tempering swirl of chaos. Any curdling that goes on is hidden by the thrashing blades. Anyway, it came out great...tasted just like regular old Hollandaise and it took literllay 6 minutes. From there simply add the meat of one of the roasted pablano's and blend until smooth. It takes on a great green color and really brings out the flavor of the pepper.

Hash: Put a rough chop on several red creamer potatoes, a few sweet potatoes, and drop them in a cast iron with some olive oil.

Let them cook until tender, and then add some red onion, some garlic, peppers, scallions, etc etc. finish with some Thyme, and there you go.

Also, heat up some ham in the pan. ("Ham in the Pan" is the name of my two piece rock band. Just fyi....internet)

Poach an Egg: Bring a large amount of water to a boil, and lower to just below a boil. The trick is to put a teaspoon or so of vinegar in the water, break the egg into a coffee mug or a measuring cup and then, with a handle, swirl the water and slowly submerge the egg. Don't touch for 3 or 4 minutes or so, and then remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel.

(action shot)

Assembly:

We bought English Muffins from Central Market and toasted them up. Quite simply they are the best English Muffins I've ever had.

First add a small slice of roasted Pablano to the base, then the bacon, and the poached egg.

Next, cover with the Hollandaise and get ready for a mouth party....in your mouth. Also dont forget to spoon on some Hash,

What did it taste like? Imagine riding a golden unicorn through the galaxy at, or near, the speed of light. Yea...thats what it tasted like.

Thank for reading everybody!!! Peace! More to come soon!

-Smokehopper