For this brunch dish, you’ll require ingredients for three separate components: The ham, the poached eggs, and the hollandaise. This meal serves two people.
For your ham, access a small, skin-on Irish unsmoked ham, measuring around 1.5kg. Other components for the ham include: 50g of sugar (brown), 50g of honey, 50g of soy sauce, a heaped teaspoon of cornflour, and a teaspoon of thyme leaves (fresh).
To prepare the poached eggs, you’ll need two tablespoons of clear malt vinegar and four fresh eggs.
For the hollandaise, gather the following: two egg yolks, a half teaspoon of white wine vinegar, one tablespoon of lemon juice, half a teaspoon of caster sugar, a pinch of sea salt, and 250g of melted salted butter – let it cool until just warm.
Ultimately, to complete the dish, source two English muffins and a handful of fresh chives.
Commence by placing the ham on a baking tray and covering it with tinfoil. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for an hour and a half. Once done, allow the ham to rest for a good ten minutes before carefully removing the skin but leaving the fat.
For your glaze, mix the brown sugar, honey, and soy sauce in a pot and heat softly until the sugar has fully dissolved, making sure to stir often. Thicken the glaze by whisking in the cornflour and bringing to simmer while stirring frequently. Once done, remove the pot from the hob and evenly distribute the glaze over the ham, ensuring to sprinkle the thyme leaves.
When it comes to the eggs, bring a large pot of water to the boil, then pour in the clear malt vinegar and slightly lower the heat to keep it simmering. To poach your eggs, either carefully split them directly into the water or alternatively crack them into a separate bowl and slip them into the simmering water from there. For a soft poached egg, give it two minutes cooking time. Remove the eggs using a slotted spoon, placing them onto a clean tea towel or several layers of kitchen paper for drying.
Here’s how to create a hollandaise sauce perfect for eggs Benedict. Begin by bringing a small pan of water to a simmer on the cooker. Set a heatproof glass or metal bowl atop the pan and into this bowl, add the egg yolks, lemon juice, vinegar, sugar and a pinch of sea salt. Whisk energetically over the simmering water until the egg mixture expands twice its original size, becomes light in colour and gains a bit more thickness, which typically takes around two minutes.
Once the egg mixture has expanded, remove the bowl with great care from the pan of simmering water. Position the bowl over a moist tea towel on your worktop to keep it stable. Start to gradually pour the liquified butter into the egg mixture while continuously whisking.
Continue to whisk and pour until only the milk solids remain in the butter. Do not add these to the mixture. By this point, the sauce should have a consistency that allows it to stick to a spoon when dipped in. If the sauce appears overly thick and you’re worried about it splitting, a quick fix would be to add a small amount of milk and whisk vigorously. After checking and adjusting the seasoning to your preference, serve the sauce promptly.
To serve eggs Benedict, toast and slice the muffins, then ladle some hollandaise sauce onto them. Add a generous slice of ham on top, followed by your poached eggs. Finish off by adding an additional serving of hollandaise sauce and sprinkle with freshly cut chives.