Cauliflower Eggs Benedict

CAULIFLOWER EGGS BENEDICT WITH CANADIAN BACON AND LEMON HOLLANDAISE

We’re eggs, cheese and bread fans here in our household, and breakfast is the main event. It’s the most important meal of the day isn’t it? Let’s dive into a new recipe.

The perfect poached egg. What a myth. It doesn’t have to be! It’s easy.

Now we wanted to try something different, because we do have this breakfast often, but never with the hollandaise because we could never get it to come out right. WELL. We solved ours and probably your problems here. We used a blender.

Layering a Benedict. This actually is a Florentine I think, because of the tomato, but I LOVE tomatoes on everything, so here we are. Cauliflower medallion, cheese, Canadian bacon, tomato, hollandaise, basil leaves and poached egg. From bottom to top.

Using cauliflower is not new to us, but for this dish it is. We love a good cauliflower mash, or pizza crust, so why not a cauliflower medallion for the base of the eggs Benedict?

Ingredients for the assembly that don’t require cooking:

• slices of provolone cheese

• basil leaves

• tomato slices

The Hollandaise ingredients and instructions and steps are as follows:

• 3 egg yolks

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter

Step 1: Let’s get that sauce made and set aside.

For the hollandaise to come out properly, in a sauce pan melt the butter until it’s a simmer of a boil. Turn off and set aside. Quickly in a blender, add the egg yolks, lemon juice, dijon, salt and cayenne into a blender and blend for 5 seconds until blended. When the blender on medium high, slowly stream the hot butter in until the mixture is emulsified. Pour this into a serving bowl and set aside. The hollandaise sauce is enough for 3-4 benedict stacks, so make more if you need to feed more.

Step 2: Grill or sauté 1/2” thick cauliflower medallions.

I season these generously after I coat them in olive oil with black pepper, salt, thyme and a bit of garam marsala for bite. You can season it however you like. Grill on each side for about 7 minutes, and flip DELICATELY. These should stay intact but they are super sensitive to the flip.

Step 3: Poach the eggs.

We do our eggs one at a time in a small, deep sauce pan. Fill with water to a reasonable height for boiling, and add in a splash of white wine vinegar. Strain your cracked eggs so that you filter out the extra bits of egg whites, and it will be a cleaner poach without stringy whites. When the water is boiling, turn the heat off, and start to swirl the water, but not too forcefully, just to create a calm whirlpool motion. With the egg still in strainer, drop in softly to the whirlpool water, and let it do its thing for 4.5 minutes. Do not stir it. Just let it poach in the hot water. After that 4.5 minutes, gently remove it with a deep spoon and set it on a side plate to get ready for assembly.

Step 4. Grill the Canadian bacon.

This is real quick, but cook on each side for just about 2 minutes, to get a slight char. They should bubble up in the middle and that’s when you flip them. We do 2 circular slices per stack.

Step 5: Assemble the cauliflower Benedicts.

On a plate, place the cauliflower medallion, then the slices of cheese (we used provolone), Canadian bacon, slices of tomatoes, spoon on some Hollandaise, then the basil leaves and lastly, the egg. You can absolutely smother the egg with the Hollandaise as a last step. But I like my eggs to be on top, pouring the yolk out.