Egg Benedict

Happy new year! Insomnia has striked again and I find my self reading recipe books and watching cooking shows on YouTube. Things on my mind at the moment are 1. worrying about the never arriving contracts from the new lab. 2. wanting so desperately to plan my getaway from Brisbane and 3. a little drama in my private life. I tried jogging, cooking and gardening to calm my mind a little but they don't seem to help. Last night I managed to sleep a bit after midnight but I ended up having this unpleasant dream about making egg benedict on my bed and ruining my beautiful white sheets. I used to get these unpleasant sleeps when I worried about my experiments or about a month before piano recital or exams.

Anyway, so why egg benedict? A few days ago I was unable to sleep until about 6AM; I Googgled "breakfast" and landed my self on Breakfast Blogger. My favourite entry is Room Service at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan: NYC breakfast #3. I love staying at hotels though sometimes I get a bit scared and sometimes paranoid. There are so many entries which feature eggs (naturally) and the author(s) kindly inserted a Youtube video on how to make Truffled Egg Benedict. I'd heard of this name before and I think I even have the recipe somewhere in one or two of my books but I never really paid attention to it or knew what it is exactly.

After the nightmarish dream, I decided that I MUST make egg benedict, but first I need bread. I had left bread out of my shopping last night because I'm such a bread snob. Well, not really. It's just that, why buy commercially made bread with preservatives and funny chemical in it when I can make my own fresh loaf the way I like it (with tons of salt, chilli and garlic). So first thing was making bread. It was a good loaf, unlike the one I made 2 nights ago that ended up being like a really massive cracker (>"<).




Egg benedict as I understand it is essentially poached egg presented on a tower of toasted bread or English muffin and bacon, topped with a generous dollop (or whatever it is supposed to be called) of Hollandaise sauce; while the asparagus serves as a garnish and nutritional booster.

This is my first time making Hollandaise sauce; it's a bit like mayonaise except the egg is whisked with some heat involved. I didn't use clarified butter of course and the egg was fried sunny side up instead of poached. Maybe I'll follow things more religiously when I start cooking as a career. Hehehe. On the side is tomato, quickly pan fried (Yes, it looks soggy. It was soggy. I'll try better next time) and some potato cubes that I boiled for about 30 minutes then pan-fried with some curry powder and lemon grass. 30 minutes sounds a bit excessive and I had never done it before but they were soooooo soft with slightly crunchy exterior. It sort of just melted in my mouth after I broke the crunch. I should eat more potatoes (or maybe I should stick with my low calorie vegetable soup for a while, considering my escalating weight).

I tied my sister to the dining chair and made her eat it. Just kidding. She is, as always, my voluntary guinea pig, my sweet sweet kitchen test rat. She liked it. I'm happy. Let's hope tonight I could sleep in peace. Amen.