Eggs Benedict

Eggs Benedict

Origin
Place of origin	United States
Details
Course served	Breakfast, brunch
Main ingredient(s)	Eggs, English muffin, Canadian bacon, hollandaise sauce
Variations	multiple

Eggs Benedict is an American brunch or breakfast dish that consists of two halves of an English muffin each of which is topped with Canadian bacon – or sometimes ham or bacon – a poached egg; and hollandaise sauce. The dish was first popularized in New York City. Many variations on the basic recipe are served.

Origin

There are conflicting accounts as to the origin of Eggs Benedict.

In an interview recorded in the "Talk of the Town" column of The New Yorker in 1942, the year before his death, Lemuel Benedict, a retired Wall Street stock broker, claimed that he had wandered into the Waldorf Hotel 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 Tschirky, the famed maître d'hôtel, 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 muffin for the toast.

Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon in place of Canadian bacon, also known as Eggs Royale

Another claim to the creation of Eggs Benedict was circuitously made by Edward P. Montgomery on behalf of Commodore E. C. Benedict. In 1967 Montgomery wrote a letter to then The New York Times food columnist Craig Claiborne which included a recipe he claimed to have received through his uncle, a friend of the commodore. Commodore Benedict's recipe — by way of Montgomery — varies greatly from chef Ranhofer's version, particularly in the hollandaise sauce preparation — calling for the addition of "hot, hard-cooked egg and ham mixture".

Variations

Eggs Benedict with bacon on toast is said to have been the original concept for the dish.

Several variations of Eggs Benedict exist.

• Eggs Blackstone substitutes streaky bacon for the ham and adds a tomato slice.
• Eggs Blanchard substitutes Béchamel sauce for Hollandaise.
• Eggs Florentine substitutes spinach for the ham or adds it underneath. Older versions of eggs Florentine add spinach to poached or shirred eggs.
• Eggs Mornay substitutes Mornay (cheese) sauce for the Hollandaise.
• Eggs Atlantic, Eggs Hemingway, or Eggs Copenhagen (also known as Eggs Royale and Eggs Montreal in New Zealand) substitutes salmon or smoked salmon for the ham. This is a common variation found in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. This is also known as "Eggs Benjamin" in some restaurants in Canada.
• Huevos Benedictos substitutes either sliced avocado or Mexican chorizo for the ham, and is topped with both a salsa (such as salsa roja or salsa brava) and hollandaise sauce.
• Eggs Hussarde substitutes Holland rusks for the English muffin and adds Bordelaise sauce.
• Irish Benedict replaces the ham with corned beef or Irish bacon.
• Dutch Benedict replaces the ham or bacon with scrapple. Popular in the eastern region of Pennsylvania.
• Eggs Hebridean replaces the ham with black pudding, often from Stornoway.
• Eggs Cochon, a variation from New Orleans restaurants which replaces the ham with pork "debris" (slow roasted pork shredded in its own juices) and the English muffin with a large buttermilk biscuit.

See also

• List of breakfast foods
• List of brunch foods
• List of egg dishes
• List of foods named after people
• List of regional dishes of the United States

External links

• Who Cooked That Up? page on origin of the dish with a recipe
• “Was He the Eggman?” An account in The New York Times about Lemuel Benedict and the efforts of Jack Benedict, the son of Lemuel's first cousin, to promote Lemuel's story. Article includes link to an audio slide show.