Eggs Benedict
Overview
English muffin
A muffin or English muffin is a small, round, flat type of yeast-leavened bread almost always dusted with cornmeal, which is commonly served split horizontally, toasted, and buttered. Muffins are eaten either as a snack alone or as part of a meal.- History :An old English nursery rhyme, "The...
, topped with ham
Ham
Ham is a cut of meat from the thigh of the hind leg of certain animals, especiallypigs. Nearly all hams sold today are fully cooked or cured.-Etymology:...
or bacon
Bacon
Bacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...
, poached egg
Poached egg
A poached egg is an egg that has been cooked by poaching, that is, in water.-Preparation:The egg is cracked into a bowl of any size, and then gently slid into a pan of simmering water and cooked until the egg white has mostly solidified, but the yolk remains soft...
s and Hollandaise sauce
Hollandaise sauce
Hollandaise sauce is an emulsion of egg yolk and butter, usually seasoned with lemon juice. In appearance it is light yellow and opaque, smooth and creamy. The flavor is rich and buttery, with a mild tang added by the lemon juice, yet not so strong as to overpower mildly-flavored foods.Hollandaise...
.
There are conflicting accounts as to the origin of Eggs Benedict, including:
- In an interview recorded in the "Talk of the Town" column of The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
in 1942, the year before his death, Lemuel Benedict, a retired Wall Street stock broker, claimed that he had wandered into the Waldorf HotelWaldorf-Astoria HotelThe Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
in 1894 and, hoping to find a cure for his morning hangover, ordered "buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon, and a hooker of hollandaise." Oscar TschirkyOscar TschirkyOscar Tschirky was maître d'hôtel of Delmonico's Restaurant and subsequently the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States. He was widely known as "Oscar of the Waldorf" and produced a large cookbook despite not being a chef...
, the famed maître d'hôtelMaître d'hôtelThe maître d’hôtel in the original French language is literally the "master of the hotel". In a suitably staffed restaurant or hotel, it is the person in charge of assigning customers to tables and dividing the dining area into areas of responsibility for the various servers on duty. The plural...
, was so impressed with the dish that he put it on the breakfast and luncheon menus but substituted ham for the bacon and a toasted English muffinEnglish muffinA muffin or English muffin is a small, round, flat type of yeast-leavened bread almost always dusted with cornmeal, which is commonly served split horizontally, toasted, and buttered. Muffins are eaten either as a snack alone or as part of a meal.- History :An old English nursery rhyme, "The...
for the toast.
- Craig ClaiborneCraig ClaiborneCraig Claiborne was an American restaurant critic, food writer and former food editor of the New York Times. He was the author of numerous cookbooks and an autobiography...
, in September 1967, wrote a column in The New York Times MagazineThe New York Times MagazineThe New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
about a letter he had received from Edward P.
Unanswered Questions
