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Eggs Benedict with Canadian bacon on an English muffin with Hollandaise sauce
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Course | Breakfast, brunch |
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Place of origin | United States |
Region or state | New York City |
Main ingredients | English muffin, Canadian bacon, eggs, Hollandaise sauce |
Variations | Multiple |
Eggs Benedict is a common American breakfastorbrunch dish, consisting of two halves of an English muffin, each topped with Canadian bacon,[1]apoached egg, and hollandaise sauce. It was popularized in New York City.
There are conflicting accounts as to the origin of eggs Benedict.
Delmonico'sinLower Manhattan says on its menu that "Eggs Benedict was first created in our ovens in 1860."[2] One of its former chefs, Charles Ranhofer, also published the recipe for Eggs à la Benedick in 1894.[3]
In an interview recorded in the "Talk of the Town" column of The New Yorker in 1942, the year before his death,[4] Lemuel Benedict, a retired Wall Street stock broker, said 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 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.[5]
A later 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 said he had received through his uncle, a friend of the commodore. Commodore Benedict's recipe—by way of Montgomery—varies greatly from Ranhofer's version, particularly in the hollandaise sauce preparation—calling for the addition of a "hot, hard-cooked egg and ham mixture".[6]
Many variations of eggs Benedict exist, involving replacing any component except the egg:
... eggs Florentine ($3.95), eggs poached and topped with Hollandaise sauce, served on spinach and English muffin
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