Breakfast vs. Brunch

It drives me absolutely crazy when people misuse the term brunch. I’m not sure why it bugs me, but it does. If a friend calls me and says she wants to do brunch, but suggests we meet at 9:30 am, I can’t help but point out that we wouldn’t be having brunch, but breakfast instead. Am I being a stickler? Sort of, I guess, but the dictionary defines brunch as ‘a late morning meal eaten instead of breakfast and lunch.’

Brunch is more leisurely than breakfast and alcoholic beverages are strongly encouraged which are both huge pluses, however one of the most important ingredients of brunch is the ability to sleep in. You can stay in bed until 11 am or 12 noon and still enjoy an amazingly delicious brunch!

To me, brunch takes place between 11 am and 3 pm. A meal after noon that consists of breakfast foods is brunch. A meal between the hours of 7 am and 11 am is breakfast. One could argue that any leisurely morning meal on a Sunday is brunch, but I don’t think the day of the week matters as much as the time of the meal.

Since spring is in the air and it’s the season for brunching, I recommend using the proper term. What’s your take on breakfast vs brunch? Does the time matter? Or is it the day of the week that’s more significant?

Herb Baked Eggs

When I need to eat something, but am feeling lazy or am super busy, I make baked eggs. They are so easy to make! All you have to do is crack an egg into a ramekin, or other ovenproof dish, and bake until the egg is cooked.

This is a basic technique that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. Sometimes I make a nest of vegetables at the bottom before adding in the egg. Other times, I’ll add meat or a sauce to make the dish more substantial. However, the classic variation that I assemble the most often is the one seen here. It’s simply eggs topped with a little cream, herbs, and cheese. Use whatever herbs and cheese you have on hand.

The hardest thing about baked eggs is knowing when they are cooked. It takes practice and a keen understanding of your oven’s temperature. The eggs will continue to cook once you remove them from the oven. Also, don’t use a dish that is too wide — essentially a 7-ounce ramekin is best. The ideal cook time for my oven is 12 minutes, but it might be different for your oven. Practice makes perfect.

Herb Baked Eggs

2 tablespoons basil, chopped
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
4 eggs
4 tablespoons cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Toast, optional for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. In a small bowl, combine the herbs with the cheese.
3. Rub the inside of 4 ramekins with 1 tablespoon of butter each. Make sure to coat the entire inside of the ramekin.
4. Carefully, to not break the yolk, crack an egg into each of the ramekins.
5. Pour 1 tablespoon of cream over each of the eggs.
6. Divide the herb and cheese mixture evenly over the top of the eggs. Season each egg generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
7. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 12 minutes, or until the whites are just set, but the yolk is still runny. Remove from the oven and transfer the ramekins to four plates. Enjoy with toast, if desired.

Serves 4.

The Time Jeff Saved the Hollandaise

On the last morning of 2011, I did what a lot of people did: I made breakfast. However, it wasn’t just any breakfast, it was eggs Benedict, the mother of all brunch dishes. Although I had somewhat successfully made eggs Benedict on Thanksgiving, on December 31 making eggs Benedict was an ordeal.

It all started a couple of weeks earlier, at Santacon, when a friend, Jeff, was telling me about a recent episode of the The Best Thing I Ever Made. In it, Duff Goldman described the most amazing-sounding champagne hollandaise eggs Benedict.

“I think we should make it in Arnold over New Year’s Eve,” Jeff said.

Since eggs Benedict is my all time favorite breakfast dish, I was happy to oblige. What better time to make the somewhat complicated dish then a long and leisurely weekend at my family’s cabin in the Sierra Nevada? I started to research recipes, but sadly couldn’t find Duff’s champagne hollandaise eggs Benedict anywhere on the internet. So I read Martha Stewart’s recipe and Emeril’s version. I familiarized myself with the technique of hollandaise. It’s kind of like making mayonnaise, but instead of slowly whisking oil into egg yolks, you whisk clarified butter into egg yolks. The hard thing about hollandaise is it has to be warmed over a pot of simmering water. Oh and temperature does matter. If the mixture gets too hot, the hollandaise will break and you end up with a gross-looking bowl of scrambled egg yolks floating in butter.

The night before we were going to make the hollandaise, Jeff accessed his television’s saved programs through the internet (yay for technology!) and let me watch Duff make the hollandaise. We would replicate his exact method. Easy, right? Everything started out okay: Jeff and I were in charge of the sauce and poached eggs and Sonia, Jeff’s girlfriend, would toast the English muffins and brown the Canadian bacon. Earlier that morning when I randomly turned on the Food Network, we had lucked upon chef Anne Burrell making hollandaise sauce. She said to always keep ice cubes nearby. If it looks like the mixture is going to break, you throw in some ice cubes and whisk like mad. I made sure to put the ice bucket on the counter just in case we ran into a crisis.

After downing a glass of liquid mimosa courage, I decided it was time to get the eggs Benedict show going. When the water in a large saucepan was just simmering, I placed a metal bowl with three large egg yolks on top of the pan and started whisking. But my arm quickly got tired. Emily, one of my best friends, stepped in and whisked while I slowly, drop by drop, added the butter. It almost started to break, so we added a small ice cube. Jeff took over with the whisking, we added some champagne, lemon juice, cayenne and white pepper, and somehow, we ended up with a fluffy, creamy, thick, pale yellow, delicious-tasting hollandaise sauce!

However, while the hollandaise sauce was ready to go, we had yet to poach the eggs. This is where things start to get chaotic. The first egg didn’t really coagulate and ended up with a yolk that looked too hard. Since we had no eggs to spare, I offered to take one for the team and eat the first (overcooked) egg. While Jeff was poaching eggs and I was taking a few bites of eggs Benedict, the hollandaise broke. I turned around to check on it, but it was too late.

“Jeff! The hollandaise!” I screamed.

He quickly took the whisk in his hand, threw in a few ice cubes, and attempted to bring it back. It didn’t work. What had moments before been a beautiful French sauce was now a sad mixture of clear butter and scrambled eggs. Trying not to panic, I went to Twitter asking my followers for help. I Google searched, “how to save a broken hollandaise” and quickly read aloud the results to Jeff. Nothing worked.

“Breakfast is ruined!” Sonia cried in despair. The phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize.

“Maybe it’s Anne Burrell calling to tell us how to save the hollandaise,” I say, fantasizing that my life is a Food Network program. Alas, it’s not Duff or Emeril or even Guy Fieri, it’s my sister’s friend who doesn’t know anything about making eggs Benedict. Suddenly, I remember something Jeff had told me during one of our many conversations about hollandaise.

“Jeff, didn’t you tell me that your dad had a special technique for saving broken hollandaise sauce? Call him now. Hurry!”

Within minutes, Jeff is back in action. He tells me to poach the eggs and goes to work saving the hollandaise. I’m too busy concentrating on poaching the eggs to perfection to see what Jeff is doing. But somehow, miraculously, in what was surely a New Year’s Eve miracle, he manages to bring the sauce back together. It wasn’t as shiny as it was the first time around, but it would do for our breakfast. After we hastily devoured the last of the eggs Benedict standing at the kitchen counter, I asked Jeff what he did to save the hollandaise. Below, is what his dad told him to do.

How to Save a Broken Hollandaise Sauce

1. Put a few tablespoons of water in a large metal bowl.
2. Place the metal bowl, directly over a burner on your stovetop set to medium-low heat. You need the water in the bowl to come to a temperature that is hotter than the broken hollandaise.
3. When it’s just about to boil, slowly and carefully whisk the broken hollandaise into the water. This should bring it back to life.

My other recommendation is to have lots of extra eggs on hand. We could have started to make the sauce over again, but we had no extra eggs. The next time I make eggs Benedict, I’m going to have a dozen extra eggs in the house!

California Benedict

6 roma tomatoes, sliced lengthwise into four thick slices
Olive oil for drizzling
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flesh of 1 1/2 avocados, diced
3 tablespoons basil, julienned
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1/3 cup white cheddar cheese, grated
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese, finely grated
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Nutemg, for sprinkling
4 large slices of sliced sourdough, lightly toasted
4 poached or fried eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Arrange the tomato slices on a baking pan covered with foil. Drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 40-45 minutes while you prepare the rest of the dish.
2. In a small bowl mash the avocados to make a spreadable paste. Mix in the basil, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
3. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk constantly for 2 minutes.
4. Slowly add the milk and cook, whisking constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. It will thicken. Remove from heat and add the cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, Dijon mustard, and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
5. To assemble, spread each piece of toast with a thick layer of mashed avocado (about 2-3 heaping tablespoons). Cover with 4-6 slices of tomato. Top with a poached or fried egg. Drizzle 1/4 cup of the cheese sauce over the top of each egg. Enjoy with a knife and fork immediately.

Serves 2-4.