Eggs Benedict with Asparagus

Eggs Benedict, or Oscar Benedict, or my own version between those two. Good morning, it’s Easter Saturday! And only for celebrating the four-days holiday I decided to prepare a nice home brunch. Last night I made a dinner for me and S, the main course being Finnish whitefish and mashed potatoes with white wine sauce. The result was rather disappointing, I will tell you later about it. So my hopes were not that high when I started to prepare the brunch: poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and asparagus.

To be honest, this was my first time ever preparing the very original Hollandaise. I have made before something similar, with less chance to ruin it completely. But this time it was fo’ real. And it turned out perfectly! As did the poached eggs! S was on a computer doing stuff, and sometimes asking what’s happening in the kitchen when he could only hear happy shouts of joy - like “ahh! beautiful! deliccccciouussss! I made it!”

For both Hollandaise and poached eggs I used a video recipe by a Finnish daily newspaper. That helped a lot more than just reading the recipe, so probably would be a good thing to do if you’re not familiar with the preparation style.

So here’s my version of eggs benedict. With this I served a self-baked pita bread, even traditionally you should have your eggs benedict with an English muffin. Also toast would do!

Enjoy the Easter days with good brunches!

Almost Eggs Benedict with Asparagus (for 2)

A small bunch of green asparagus, washed and ends trimmed if necessary

salt

Bring water to a boil in a tall saucepan and add salt. Place the bunch of asparagus into the water, ends down. Cook asparagus (bound together with a rubber band) for around 2-3 minutes. Serve immediately.

Poached eggs:

2 liters water

1 dl spirit vinegar

2-3 eggs

Bring water almost to a boil in a wide saucepan. Keep the heat relatively low, if you let it boil, you will get scrambled eggs instead of poached. Add vinegar.

Crack each egg into a cup individually. Don’t break the yolk. 

Create a whirlpool in the saucepan by spinning the water around for a few rounds with a wooden spoon. 

Place the cup with an egg very close to the surface of the water and drop the egg at once in the middle of the whirlpool.

Keep giving the water a gentle spin every now and then, so that the egg keeps slightly moving all the time. It’s ready when the egg white is set, for a few minutes. The yolk is supposed to be runny so don’t overcook.

Lift the eggs out of the pan and place on a paper towel to drain.

Repeat with the rest of the eggs.

Hollandaise sauce:

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 egg yolks

150 g butter

salt, pepper

In a saucepan or microwave melt half of the butter. Collect the white whey off the butter so that it becomes clear yellow in color.

Place a small, thick-bottomed saucepan on a stove over a very low heat. I heated my electric stove for 10 minutes with the lowest heat and then turned it off, using the after heat to make the sauce. You can also use bain marie, but be careful not to heat it too hot. If you use too high heat the eggs will cook and the sauce curdle.

Add lemon juice and the yolks in the pan and start stirring constantly. Do not stop but keep whisking for 5 minutes or until the mixture starts to get thicker and is very light yellow in color.

Keep whisking vigorously and add first the melted butter in a thin string in to the pan. When all incorporated add the firm butter in cubes, still whisking (I know this asks for some muscles, eh).

When all is incorporated, let warm up a bit, then spice with salt and pepper and serve on top of toasted bread, poached eggs and asparagus.

Spaghetti with Asparagus & Spinach Pesto

Spring is slowly but surely turning into summer here up North! That’s such a great feeling, although I have to stay inside writing my thesis, AND I’m having allergic symptoms. But who cares, it’s summer! During the past days the temperature has raised to more than 20 C and yesterday me and S spent some time outside reading and writing. I’d love to sit on our back yard doing the work, but seriously I should get better sunglasses to see my screen in the sunshine.

Now doing the thesis should be my first priority, as in one week I’ll be moving back to Helsinki! I can’t believe it’s so close…the time runs so fast…it runs out, actually. But I’m doing my best to get as much done during this week as possible. Other non-food related news is that yesterday I received the cutest video regards for my birthday from my in-laws in Brazil. I think I’ll have to post the video so that you can see it too. It made me so happy, it made my day!

But to the serious business: food. As the summer is now here I think it could be a time for my last asparagus post of the spring. Let’s put it tentatively, as I might still go back to asparagus during the early summer. Here’s a recipe of spaghetti with asparagus and spinach pesto. The original recipe is from Simply Recipes, that I’ve been browsing lately quite a lot. I love their way of doing namely simple and delicious food. Just like the one that follows. 

This time I followed the original ingredients and amounts very precisely. Only the pine nuts I had to replace with roasted almonds, just because the pine nuts are a bit too expensive for a student budget. But unless you have a situation like mine, don’t substitute pine nuts with anything, as they give a truly unique and delicious flavor! If you however have to do like I did, use less than 2,5dl of the nuts.

Spaghetti with Asparagus and Spinach Pesto (serves 3)

400g spaghetti

450g fresh asparagus, washed and woody ends cut

3 handfuls baby spinach, washed and drained

1 big or 2 small cloves garlic, peeled

2,5dl parmesan cheese, grated + more for serving

2,5dl pine nuts

75ml good olive oil

juice of half lemon

salt and black pepper to taste

Bring water to a boil in a large saucepan. Sprinkle in some salt.

While water is heating, put the pine nuts in a single layer in a large skillet. Heat on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until fragrant and lightly browned. Remove pine nuts from pan and set aside. You will use 3/4 of the pine nuts for the pesto paste and 1/4 to mix in whole.

When the water boils, drop the asparagus in. Let boil for 2-3 minutes only, so that the veggies keep their bright green color and become slightly tender. Remove the asparagus from the pan and rinse with cold water to stop cooking. Cut off some asparagus tips, to use for garnish.

Add some water into the pan if needed, and bring to a boil again. Add some salt and cook the pasta according to the package instructions. 

While pasta is boiling, prepare the pesto. Place the chopped asparagus, spinach, garlic, Parmesan, and 3/4 of the pine nuts to a food processor. Purée and, with the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil until a paste forms. Add the lemon juice and lastly black pepper and salt to taste.