Eggs Benedict / Florentine, homemade English muffin

Eggs Florentine, Benedict

One of the splendid things about being me is that each element of this breakfast comes so easily, the English muffins, the Florentine, the poached egg, the Hollandaise sauce, so called because it's the sort of thing the French imagine the Dutch would enjoy and it's one of the five basic sauces in the French mother sauce repertoire. 

And repertoire is another French thing meaning the list of well-practiced dramatic things one is prepared to do at the drop of a hat.

Go on then, drop a hat. 

And observe for yourself the flurry of activity that must appear as a blur and something of a conjuring that occurs in a state of serenity. 

Do you care to hear something very strange? 

Take it as a science fiction if you like, it works as well.

In the Urantia Book near the end where it talks about the life of Jesus it relates a version of the wedding at Cana. 

At that point Jesus was by then aware of his divine self and his pre-existance and his own creator prerogatives. But he realized at that wedding that he must be master his every idle thought because celestial personalities were present who were unable by their nature to not carry out their creator's wishes. He had to control his human desires no matter how small because they would do it for him. They can't help themselves if they tried.  

How they tell it is his mother was nagging him at Cana, and it's so easy to imagine a Jewish mother doing this, 

"But my son, I promised them you would do this." 

She was really nagging him, there's a lot more that comes before that, she was pushing him and he finally strongly rebuffed her. He had no intention of performing magic tricks, he had nothing to do with those people running out of wine, too bad for them, so what, that's the way it is, and there his mum goes around making promises she cannot assure just to goad Jesus into action and he was having none of it. He made his mum cry and it broke his human heart it had to be that way. This is how he spoke to her,

"... for have I not many times told you that I have come to do the work of the heavenly father? Most gladly would I do what you ask of me if it were a part of my father's will."

Jesus stopped short as he realized what he had just done. 

His father's will has no problem at all in fulfilling Mary's wish and so the celestial agencies present at that scene knowing the Father's will actuated His will instantly by using the materials present at the scene and using natural processes too, the only difference with regular wine and the apparent miraculous water-to-wine was that the water-to-wine was produced outside the restriction of time. Everything else was right there. Those agencies have nothing to do with time, they're not stuck in time like we are, it's not their dimension. 

Their version's details are half-way down here. 

I told that to my brother once and he got mad as hell. I told him something else too and he got mad as hell at that too. I told him a third related thing and he got mad as hell at that too. He's very emotional. 

And months later he brought up the subject of that third thing again with a another party, but he picked up my vocabulary that I assembled back there to state that third thing, and he propounded the view he earlier resisted.  

And he asked me again to repeat that second thing and elaborate if I would and I said, "Bite me, Brother for I have given up talking about that." Because I learned best not to challenge delicate religious sensibilities especially when it's canon. And besides, it says so itself not to bother. 

And I think about that whenever I make something with yeast. Or anything that takes planning like a roast.  

Since you're not working that whole time you can forget about it for awhile and that's like stepping out of time. 

It's like being a Time Lord like Dr Who. 

You get a dough started and determine if it will be slow or fast, set it up to control the speed, Time Lord like, and then step into your TARDIS and dismiss the whole project for awhile then pick it up later. Total work time is just a few minutes. 

You know who's not a Time Lord? This is disappointing because he's master of so many other things. Mark Bittman, that's who.

Here is Bittman speaking with a master and imagining he's found an improvement. His desire for speed betrays his discomfort with time. He wants to speed it, not step out of it. Time is the whole point of the system under discussion, the thing that makes the difference, the thing that improves, but here in this video time is the thing Bittman wishes to compress. That desire shows that he just flat doesn't get the idea at all. Bittman has failed to internalize the whole point behind the video, one of the YouTube viral sensations that increased his fame. 

Poached egg with spinach, beef mixture

This is the kind of beach that hurts when you walk on it barefooted. 

The second half of the rib-eye steak seared earlier here.

Frozen spinach rid of excess moisture which turns out to be a lot. Ricotta to lighten the spinach. Onion and garlic and spices to flavor all that. Sour cream instead of regular cream to loosen further and to introduce a trace of acid, otherwise, lemon or a sprinkle of vinegar.

The egg is a double-yolk egg and that is like winning the egg lottery and you can only win the egg lottery if you play the jumbo eggs.

The poaching water contains generous but cheap vinegar and it never boiled, plus it never boiled at Denver which is 10 degrees lower in  Farenheight Farenheit F degrees than at sea level, so about 180℉.

The poached egg was cleared of goofy loose albumen while still in the pot. The yolks were lifted with a regular serving spoon and the remaining goofy extra albumen trimmed by running the edge of the spoon across the inside of the pot all the way around until the spoon is trimmed 360º, or nearly, the spoon handle interferes with complete spoon edge trimming.

Manipulating eggs this way by controlling the temperature of the poaching liquid and not being carried off with the idea that the water must be simmering shows confidence of understanding the ranges within which egg albumens and egg yolks denature and the whole trimming off of the extra freeform albumen is terribly elegant. Look at the way it spills out, it is a little yolk bladder that can be placed on anything to provide a wonderful perfectly thick sauce.  

Poached eggs, Hollandaise

With spinach, Florentine, if you like. The spinach was marketed frozen and heated for a previous meal and something had to be done with it. I forget what it contains, I think just a splash of old red wine standing in for vinegar and whatever dried herbs I used at the time, whatever it was, it is still wonderful.  

I did not add onion, scallion, garlic, or any other allium because I'm a little bit tired of that right now. 

Why bother with English muffins when I have my own sturdy bread? And frankly, my bread is better.  

No ham was harmed for this dish, for presently I am hamless, nor prosciutto, and I did not  feel like frying bacon again so there's a noticeable  but not regrettable absence of that element.  

This was dinner. I consumed 1/2 stick of butter all by myself tonight, and I'm still dropping pounds. But I couldn't help it, you see,  the sauce was so light and smooth, so delicious, that it was irresistible, and there was no point in saving the little that remained so I ate it with a spoon. 

1. I discovered a new way to make Hollandaise that is quite simple and occurs naturally. The idea follows closely regular mayonnaise except butter for oil and lemon juice for vinegar, and no mustard, but come to think of it, that isn't a bad idea.  I used an immersion blender with the whisk attachment and a pint-size mason jar. Some flecks flick out of the jar when one is less than careful. I imagine the same thing could be done with a hand-held mixer with one of the beaters removed. Or an electric drill with a beater inserted instead of a drill bit. I tried a mini processor but that's noisy and didn't work very well, and I never tried a blender although I understand that's popular too. I just don't want to scrape it out around the blade for a small amount and I don't want to clean it. 

* 1 egg yolk

* 1/4 cup melted butter

* 2 tablespoons lemon juice (adjust to suit your taste)

* 1/16 teaspoon salt

* generous grind of pepper. 

As usual, blend the egg to smoothness, slowly drizzle the hot liquid butter. SLOWLY I SAID! Then less slowly as you go along, but still slowly.  Apparently I drizzled too fast because mine remained thin. The good thing was, I had a shallow pan of water already boiling for the poached eggs, so I could cook it as with a double boiler and thicken it up.  I set the jar inside the pan of water directly touching the water and the pan, which is unlike a proper double boiler, and whisked continuously until the temperature rose to 140℉ / 60℃ which took a few minutes.  I kept lifting the jar to ensure it didn't get too hot on the bottom but I'm not sure that was necessary. The result was the most amazing tasting soft texture silky  butter imaginable. I've honestly never tasted Hollandaise this good. Ever. Even prepared by pros. In fact, I don't trust them anymore. I'm imagining them in the back with an open gigantic #10 can of Hollandaise sauce kept warm in a ban marie. And if they're not, then what is their excuse for Hollandaise that's so sub par compared with my own? Huh? What? 

That does it!  I'm never ordering Hollandaise again unless it's to see how poorly theirs compares to mine.   *exhales on fingernails, buffs on shirt* 

To poach eggs use the same small non-stick pan you use to fry breakfast eggs.  Fill it 3/4 with water and bring to gentle boil. The trick is to add both salt and vinegar to the water. One or the other will not do, both are needed to cause the albumen to hold together tightly. As it begins to set, gently loosen the egg from the bottom of the pan with a spatula and let water flow under it. The egg does tend to stick, even though it's a non-stick pan. You can use a regular spoon to drizzle hot water over the top of the egg to hasten cooking. When done to suit you, lift the egg with a slotted spoon. If necessary, trim the edges by running a knife around the edges of a slotted spoon.  <-- I read that in Michel Roux's egg book but I never felt the need to do it.  

Say you're making a brunch for ten or twelve at home and blowing the minds and winning the admiration of your peers with your mad sauce-making and egg poaching skillz, only to mention the ease of your breezy presentation.  The eggs can be reserved in a bowl of cold water and lifted out when all the plates are assembled.  Then as the compliments are heaped upon you like rose petals, you can blush demurely and feign shyness while shrugging, "eh," and with a wave, "it just comes out of me."

Flounder rolls with florentine

Flounder stuffed with florentine that is stiffened with toasted sourdough bread crumbs. Coated with butter and lime sauce, which I tasted along the way and go, "Eww, yuk!" Added sugar, fixed. Topped with shredded basil and toasted sesame seeds.

florentine

* butter
* flour
** butter and flour to a roux
** 1 or 2 cubes of frozen home-made chicken broth sufficient to bring roux to a thick sauce
* garlic
* diced onion
* chopped spinach
* Parmigiano Reggiano
* toasted bread crumbs to stiffen
* nutmeg
* S/P

Florentine daubed onto flounder filets on top of oiled aluminum foil. Then rolled up and sealed as a roll within the foil. This is the tricky bit, the flounder doesn’t want to roll. It would rather fold. Bake for 20 minutes in toaster oven, less if your filets are tiny things, more if they’re thick. Use your fish-baking judgement here, and remember, overcooked fish is the big fail, so better to undercook and return to oven than to overcook and ruin the whole thing.

sauce

* butter
* 1 cube frozen chicken broth
* 1/2 teaspoon corn starch in 1/4 cup cold water
* juice of 1/2 lime
* 2 teaspoons sugar
* S/P
* juice exuded from the cooked fish.