eggs - Retro Food For Modern Times

Tag: eggs

02
May
2019

Name Plates: Eggs Benedict

categories: Breakfast, Brunch, Classic Recipes, Eggs, Name Plates, United States of America

Hello brunch! Eggs Benedict is one of my favourite brunch dishes. Mind you, I would also eat them for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I’m not that fussy! But today’s project is to uncover the eponymous Benedict,

What Are Eggs Benedict?

Okay, so…given this is such a brunch favourite, I know many of you will already know exactly what Eggs Benedict entails. And all of you are quite welcome to skip to the next section.

For those who are in the dark, Eggs Benedict is a dish typically served at breakfast or brunch which consists of two halves of a toasted English muffin, topped with bacon or ham, a poached egg and Hollandaise Sauce.

Who Was Benedict?

Larousse names Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans as one of the possible birthplaces of Eggs Benedict. And there is certainly an amazing looking Eggs Benny on their website.😍 However, all the other research I have done points to New York as being the birthplace of Eggs Benedict.

Delmonico’s is a contender. A regular customer, one of the Le Grand Benedict family, got bored with the regular breakfast and asked for “poached eggs on toasted English muffins with a thin slice of ham, Hollandaise sauce and a truffle on top” as a more exciting alternative.

In 1967, a letter to the New Yorker said that Commodore E.C.Benedict, a yachtsman and retired banker was the inventor of Eggs Benedict.

My favourite story, however, and so the one we are going to go with, suggests that the recipe was devised by one Lemuel Benedict in 1942 when he strolled into the Waldorf Hotel with a raging hangover and asked for “buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon, and a hooker of hollandaise”.

Instead of looking askance at him and saying in a very stern manner, “We Sir, are a classy establishment and hence not familiar with the practice of measuring our sauces, Hollandaise or otherwise in units of sex workers”, the kitchen complied and Eggs Benedict was born!

Can we just take a step out to talk about how delicious Hollandaise Sauce is?

OMG..it’s the best thing in the world. Sometimes, when I really don’t feel like cooking? I will buy a jar of Hollandaise sauce, heat it up in the microwave and just dip vegetables…asparagus, broccoli, beans, etc right into the jar for my dinner!

And do you also know that it was only very recently that I reaslised Hollandaise is just French for “from Holland”? I mean, it’s totally damn obvious when you think about it but….at the time?

The Recipe

Given it’s likely New York origins, I used the recipe from the New York Times for my classic version of Eggs Benedict.

Some variations are below.

Variations

The interwebs abound with variations of Eggs Benny. You can change the meat:

This Naughty Benny swaps out the ham for mortadella and adds an onion jam.

You can change the base:

This one swaps out the English Muffins for Potato Rosti.

You can combine it with other brunch favorites such as this Benedict BLT.

Or add some Italian Pizzazz with an Eggs Benedict Pizza.

You can also swap out the sauce

For those who like a bit of booze with their Benny, this one has a beer-based sauce.

I guess the only constant is the eggs…

Oops, scratch that. Here’s a vegan version.

A myriad of other versions can be found here

Modern Day Benedict

In my mind, there can only be one:

What’s your favourite version of Eggs Benedict?

And to whom would you dedicate a modern dish of poached eggs, ham and hollandaise sauce on an English Muffin?

Have a wonderful week!

31
Dec
2017

Anne’s Poetical Egg Salad Sandwiches

categories: Books, Eggs, Sandwiches

One of the absolute delights of my childhood was discovering the Anne of Green Gables set of books by Lucy Maud Montgomery. They were my favourite books for years! And to be honest, although I haven’t read one in forever, I still have the entire series and it wouldn’t take much for me to be again drawn into the world of Matthew and Marilla, Diana Barry and Gilbert Blythe and the adorable red-haired, high-spirited feisty girl known as Anne of Green Gables. And that’s Anne with an E and don’t you forget it!

These books taught me so much about the world – about love, about friendship and family, about how it’s okay to be different (and how to embrace that difference). Oh, and how I wasn’t the only person in the world who constantly had to spell their name to people to ensure that they got it right!

So I was overjoyed to find out that there is an Anne of Green Gables Cookbook. And beside myself to be given a free ARC from NetGalley and Race Point Publishing to review! Thank you so much!

First up, this book is gorgeous! The illustrations and the photos are beautiful. And all of the recipes are referenced to the exact place in the books where they occurred..which a pedant like me totally loves!

I choose to make Anne’s Poetical Egg Salad sandwiches. And they were delicious.

OMG…these were so good!

I think sometimes it’s hard when blogging to present something as simple as these sandwiches because…..well…it’s egg salad right and everyone knows how to make that. so why bother? But this is also real food, the kind of food I want to make. Eat. Repeat.

Recipe? Here.

And you can also fancy these up. The version you are looking at has some chives in the mix. It’s great with lettuce in the sandwich. To make it really fancy, a slice of smoked salmon is divine!

I adored this book almost as much as the novels that inspired it!

And as we head into the new year, some rules for living from Miss Anne Shirley:

ON FRIENDS

ON MAKING MISTAKES

ON MAKING AN EFFORT

ON ATTITUDE

ON LOVE

THE FUTURE

And on that note sweet people, I’m going to bid you adieu for 2017.

Thank you for reading, commenting, liking, sharing. You’re the best and most wonderful kindred spirits ever!

And for all of you, all my very, very best for a joyful 2018! May it bring it everything you wish for!

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23
Oct
2017

REPOST – Eggs With Spinach and Fashion Tips From Dinah Shore

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Spinach, Supper

Eggs and Spinach are a classic combo. Think Eggs Florentine, Spinach Quiche or Spinach Soufflé. Well today we are using eggs and spinach to create a twist on the dish The A -Z of Cooking calls Eggs With Spinach. Uh huh. What it lacks in imagination, it makes up for in precision. But it’s also from a chapter called Watching Your Weight and, to be honest, the original recipe was a little meh….So, whilst staying in the spirit of Eggs with Spinach here’s my version. What it lacks in weight watching, it makes up for in flavour.

Given that choice, always make flavour the winner. Just go for a run the next day!

My eggs and spinach recipe contains spinach lightly sauteed in garlic, mixed with a little cream, sprinkled with nutmeg, topped with cheese and baked with an egg until the white is set and the yolk is runny perfection!

Did anyone say brunch? These eggs with spinach scale up really well for a group at brunch or make a great quick and easy supper for one!

I used fresh baby spinach in my Eggs with Spinach, however you could use frozen. Below is a great vintage ad for frozen spinach. Note the awesome striped t-shirt being worn by Dinah Shore and the perfectly coordinated polka dot apron. She’s rocking my favourite patterns and showing that the rule of “blue and green should never be seen” is as dumb AF. Go Dinah. OMG, I only just noticed her gorgeous green shoes with the bows. I want that entire outfit! I wonder if back in the day women everywhere were also exclaiming “Glory be….fuck the spinach, get me that t-shirt and those shoes…”

Does anyone say “Glory be” anymore?

Did anyone ever?

Before we travel down that etymological rabbit hole here’s the recipe:

Eggs with Spinach

Print Recipe

A delicious quick and easy dish for brunch, lunch or supper!

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

500g baby spinach
1 garlic clove, crushed
25g butter
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp cream
4 tbsp grated cheddar cheese

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced.
Lightly grease four 3/4 cup-capacity ovenproof dishes.
Wash the baby spinach.
Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and add the garlic.
Saute for a minute or two until the garlic softens but does not change colour.
Add the spinach and stir until just wilted, about 2 minutes.
Take off the heat and stir in the cream and nutmeg.
Divide the spinach into two and place in two ramekin dishes.
Make an indent in the middle and break and egg into each.
Sprinkle the cheese over the top.
Season with salt and pepper.
Bake for around 15 minutes or until the egg white is just set but yolk is still runny.
Remove from oven. Stand for 2 minutes.
Serve with toast.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 2

If you would also like to rock Dinah’s look here is my take on it:

That was awesome fun! Now I gotta go do it in real life. Have a good one!

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15
Jul
2016

Cowboys, Caviar, Casseroles and Cocktails

categories: Cheese, Chilli, Chocolate, Cocktail, Corn, Eggs, Kahlua, Salad, Vodka

Dear readers

I had such high hopes for this post. Then they were totally dashed by a twist of fate that…well…I guess if I’d seen it coming it wouldn’t be a twist would it? But I’m jumping ahead of myself. First, I was totally delighted when Greg from Recipes4Rebels asked if I would join in a cookalong for Cowboy Day! This event occurs on the fourth Saturday of July each year and is celebrated all over the world!

Obviously, this is not the fourth Saturday in July, however, as I will be sunning myself on the beach at Sanur in Bali that day, with Greg’s blessing I am posting my ventures into Cowboy Cookin’ early! And it’s a three course meal y’all. (Because 1 that’s how cowboy’s talk and 2 cocktails are a course aren’t they? This one is almost a meal! But again, getting ahead of myself!)

So now onto my foiled grand plans. My idea was that I would find a cocktail called a Bali Cowboy – possibly a more tropical version of this cowboy cocktail and I would make it for my post and then, on the day itself, I would tweet another picture of me in Bali with with my Bali Cowboy and it would in a glass as big as my head and it would be blue and loaded with umbrellas and pineapple wedges and all the other tropical cocktail paraphenalia.

A quick google soon showed me that there is such a thing as a Bali Cowboy. It is NOT a cocktail. Turns out that a Bali Cowboy is a male prostitute who hangs around Kuta Beach willing to sell his services to any rich (ie all) Western women who care to pay for them. So, whilst I’m not 100% ruling out a photo of me with a Bali Cowboy on Cowboy Day, the likelihood of it happening has dropped significantly!

So, new ideas had to be found. Starting with some caviar. Because we’re classy cowboys! It’s Cowboy Caviar of courseWhere has this salad / dip been all my life? If this is what cowboys eat, then I want to be a cowboy. It’s all kinds of beans and corn and tomatoes and avocado . Truly delicious! I loved this!

So, for the second course, I went straight to the top. And by that I mean Mr John Wayne himself.

Turns out The Duke and I share a love of eggs, cheese and chillies. Now, just one thing about the John Wayne casserole…. To my mind, when you combine egg yolks to beaten egg whites with other stuff, in this instance cheese and chilli and you them put that in an oven and cook until it’s all puffed up and golden, that’s not so much a casserole as a soufflé.

You be the judge:

I’ll sit quietly over here and let my case speak for itself.

By the way, cooking this for an hour would be way too much. You are seeing about 35 minutes and I think it was over. I would cook this…half an hour max. Also, the tomato didn’t do much. I would actually leave it out and cook this for 20 minutes total.

The ~~soufflé~~ casserole was good but I think I was so blown away by the Cowboy Caviar that it kind of paled by comparison. I will definitely make it again though!

And now for my grand Cowboy finale, I am turning to to person who started all of this, yep, Greg. This cocktail /dessert is A-MAZING! So, so good. Cowboys and cowgirls, can I present, the Giant Martini!

There is no other word for this but absolutely divine! The giant in the Giant Martini doesn’t refer t to it’s size (but you could scale it up very easily) but to the fact that it was created on the set of Giant by Liz Taylor and Rock Hudson.

Git along little doggie, this cocktail is all mine!

And you too!

Ah yes, Greg’s site on the PC, a cocktail in front of me and The A-Z of Cooking behind it. Just a regular day round these parts!

Many, many thanks to Greg, this was so much fun! Thank you so much for including me! I always say this but you hear so much about the internet being a a horrible vicious place, I am always delighted and totally honoured to make new friends, like Greg, on here.

Ok, I’ve gotta go, 5:30am start tomorrow! But I’m loving and leaving you with some some super rhinestone cowboy singing!

Find out all about the Cowboy Day Cook A Long here. Hopefully my attempts will inspire you to bigger and better things on the day!

The recipe for Cowboy Caviar I used came from Cookie and Kate.

The Giant Martini recipe is here.

Kiss me and smile for me, I’ll be back here in a couple of weeks but if you can’t smile without me, I’ll be tweeting and instagramming from Bali throughout.

Loving you, leaving you, now!

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04
Nov
2015

Vincent Price’s Buckingham Eggs Jaffle

categories: 1960's recipes, Anchovies, Bread, Breakfast, Brunch, Cheese, Eggs, Jaffle

You made a what???

For for those of you who are already totally confused, let me explain. A Jaffle is an Australian term for a toasted sandwich. And it is a much loved food for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper, a midnight snack or any of the times inbetween.

And I made one based on Vincent Price’s Buckingham Eggs. And it was very good!

Like I guess many of my generation, the first real inkling I had of Vincent Price was as the voice in Thriller….

I had no idea he could not only cook, but cook like a boss, until I started blogging. It’s one of the reasons why I am so excited that the 50th edition of Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes is about to be released. And I am reliably informed by Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers that, in her view, it is the best cookbook ever written! And Jenny knows her stuff!!!

Only a few more sleeps ’til that happens but first, Jenny invited her blogging pals to take part in a cookalong with some of Vincent and Mary’s recipes.

I hadn’t really intended on making the Buckingham Eggs for the cookalong . I was totally primed to make Vincent Price’s Champagne Chicken but, it was only 10:00am. Possibly a little too early for a roast dinner. But I was hungry and a jaffle seemed like the perfect thing to tide me over til dinner time. A quick glance at the fridge revealed eggs, cheese and anchovies. I had a thought process that went something like this:

You could make the Buckingham Eggs
But I want a jaffle
The Buckingham Eggs sound really good.
So does a jaffle.
Anchovy and Mustard butter…-
Egg and Cheese Jaffle
Hmm…what if we…
I like where you are going with this

And thus the Buckingham Eggs Jaffle was born. I’m sure neither Jenny or Vincent would disapprove of my tweaking the recipe slightly to satisfy both the devil and the angel on my shoulder! For the purists, here is a link to the original recipe as cooked by Jenny:

Buckingham Eggs

For my version make an English mustard and anchovy butter. I could not find any anchovy paste so I mushed up an anchovy. The mustard adds some heat and makes it a beautiful colour!I could just eat this on toast forever and be totally content!

But, wait, there’s more!

Eggs and cream and cheese and onions. I meant to add some Worchestershire Sauce but I totally forgot! Oh well, all the more reason to make it again next Sunday!

Now, add the onions to the egg mixture and scramble them really lightly. You need them to thicken up but still be quite moist as they will continue to cook once they are in the jaffle iron.

Now, butter both sides of the bread (if you’re feeling decadent ) or the one side if not. Place the buttered sides on the surface of the jaffle iron. This is important otherwise your bread will stick like crazy. Place the cheese on one side and the thickened egg mixture on the other side.

Fold The Iron over. Trim any bits of bread hanging out of the iron and place over a low heat.

The only tricky bit is that once the iron is closed you have no way of telling how much the inside has cooked unless you open it up and have a little peek. Make sure you turn it over at least once so both sides get toasty. As a general rule, once the outside is a dark golden colour, the inside will be perfect. This is the colour you are aiming for:

At the risk of sounding a bit hippy dippy, when cooked like this, the egg and cream mixture and the cheese become one in a gorgeous creamy melange. This is surrounded by crispy, salty, slightly spicy bread…..OMGZ delicious.

This made a super brunch, but if darkness is falling across the land and the midnight hour is close at hand, this would also make a super late night snack!

A massive thanks to Jenny for including me and to Vincent and Mary Price for the recipe.

For all the deets on the cookbook launch and activities around it, click any (ALL) of the links below:

Vincent Price Treasury Cookalong with Silver Screen Suppers

Vincent Price Legacy Tour – for details of celebratory events in the UK

Amazon Page for the 50th Edition of A Treasury of Great Recipes

Treasury of Great Recipes Facebook page

Silver Screen Suppers Facebook page

Champagne chicken up next! Stay tuned….

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