Porcini Eggs Benedict
So many of my personal rituals fall by the wayside during mushroom season. One day I wake up at 4 a.m. so that I can be one the porcini trail at daybreak. The next, I'm recovering from the lack of sleep, and trying to catch up on work. My weed garden goes untended, friends wonder if I've become a hermit, my carpet gets covered with 1/4" of dirt, and my kitchen and bike collect dust, too. By the end of porcini season, I usually feel like I've been lost in space for a while.
I woke up one day last week and realized I hadn't eaten a proper breakfast in over a month. Most of my meals, breakfast included, have been on the run or of the stand-in-front-of-the-fridge-and-pick-at-leftovers-with-my-fingers variety. I decided to start to re-establish my routine (a.k.a. all of the little things that make me feel human) by getting reacquainted with the idea of starting my days with a nice meal, eaten on a plate, while enjoying the sunrise.
Why jump back into the breakfast boat with boring old oatmeal, though? I wanted to do it up right. I thought long and hard about what my dream breakfast would be, and the only answer could be eggs benedict. And because I still had fresh porcini in the fridge, the worked their way into the meal. In this recipe, whole porcini mushroom caps stand in for the usual bread/muffin layer. Porcini eggs benedict feels luxurious, but only takes ten minutes to make, start to finish.
Hungry for more foraged porcini mushroom recipes? Click here.
Porcini Eggs Benedict
4 porcini caps, measuring 4-6" across, pores removed if they've gone yellow
1 Tbsp. butter
4 poached eggs
4 pieces of Canadian bacon
1 batch blender hollandaise sauce
chives to garnish
1. If you are anything like me, you will need to poach the eggs and make the hollandaise sauce before you start the remainder of the elements for the recipe. But if you're a great multi-tasker in the kitchen, you might just be able to cook each of the parts at the same time, particularly if you use the blender hollandaise sauce that I've linked to in the ingredients.
2. In a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat, place the porcini caps, pore-side down, directly onto the dry surface of the pan.
3. Let the porcini mushroom caps cook until they are no longer bubbling off water, and start to take on a touch of brown. At this point, add the butter to the pan, and let them cook for an additional minute pore-side down.
4. Flip the porcini caps over, sprinkle them with a tiny bit of salt, and cook for a minute more.
5. As soon as the porcini come out of the skillet, put the slices of Canadian bacon in, and let them heat up and get crusted with a touch of gold, flipping once. This only takes a minute or two.
6. To assemble the porcini eggs benedict, lay down a porcini cap. Top each one with a slice of Canadian bacon. Nuzzle a poached egg onto each stack, then drizzle them all with a generous spoonful of hollandaise sauce. Finish each with a few chives.
