How to make eggs benedict for a group of people
I can think of few things better for a family and friends brunch than eggs benedict. It's actually not that hard to do, but there's a few tricks that can make everything come together at the same time. Rather than give recipes, I thought I'd share some of my tricks.
The heart of eggs benedict is the eggs and we are talking about poached eggs. Poaching eggs is actually very easy. Take a 2-3 qt sauce pan with water that's just off a rolling boil. Do not salt the water. Do add some vinegar. I put the egg in a custard dish and make a whirlpool with the water with a slotted spoon. Gently drop the egg in the middle and time for 3 minutes. The swirling water will help keep the egg all together until the whites start to coagulate. I usually do two eggs at a time, dropping the 2nd egg in about halfway through the 3 minutes from the first. Naturally you'll need 2 timers or a count up timer and a good memory.
So now you have 1 or 2 poached eggs, but you need several ready at the same time. One solution is to use a big pot, but now you have the problem of getting all of them in at the same time and keeping them intact and unattached. You also have the problem of trying to do this and make everything else happen at the same time. Instead of doing this I will fill a crock pot with hot water and store the poached eggs there until ready to serve. The tricky part here is the temperature of the water. Below 140F and you are flirting with culturing any potential salmonella which can happen very fast at elevated temperatures. Much above 140F and you will solidify the egg yolks which you don't really want. So each time you add an egg, check the temperature. If it's below 140F, add some boiling water to bring it up to 140-145F. The added benefit to this method is you are effectively pasteurizing the eggs which renders runny yolks completely safe. So long as you can hold the water in this 140-145F range, you can keep them in this state for a long time and they will be indistinguishable from freshly poached eggs.
Hollandaise sauce is another thing that's tricky to time just right as it doesn't keep for very long if allowed to cool. The trick here is to store prepared hollandaise in a thermos until ready to serve. It will easily keep for an hour or more this way.
Traditionally Canadian bacon is used, but variations here are limited only by your imagination. I've seen American bacon, small chicken fried steaks, crab cakes, smoked salmon, and all sorts of other things used. I like using smoked salmon on top of avocado slices. If you can get your hands on some good tomatoes, lightly sauteed tomato slices is a nice touch.
For the English muffins, make sure you toast them well. That way they slice more easily on the plate. Even the best restaurants mess this part up. Also don't forget to season the eggs. If your hollandaise is properly seasoned, you may not need much in the way of additional seasoning.
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