The Breakfast Bible contains a recipe for "eggs Blackstone", a variant of eggs Benedict. While the traditional eggs Benedict recipe offers the familiar combination of Hollandaise-smothered poached eggs atop back bacon (or ham) on toasted English muffin halves, eggs Blackstone replaces the English muffin with bread, the back bacon with side/streaky bacon, and adds tomatoes to the mix. It sounds delicious!

I didn't have the ingredients for either of these variations yesterday, however. But I did have both English muffins and eggs. (So many eggs!) And I knew that there was some baby spinach in the fridge that needed to be used up. So I opted for another common variation on eggs Benedict: eggs Florentine.

In this rendition, the meat is replaced with fresh baby spinach. I've also seen versions that sandwich a generous portion of lightly steamed spinach between the eggs and English muffin. And some preparations even have you mix chopped cooked spinach into the Hollandaise sauce! Any of these will work, but my plan was to follow the recipe in front of me and just pile a bit of fresh baby spinach onto the English muffins before adding the eggs.

I say "plan" because that's not actually what ended up happening. It turns out that TF had also had similar thoughts about the spinach needing to be used up and added it to the lentil stew she'd made the previous day. So, I had everything else all ready to go only to realize that I did not, in fact, have any fresh spinach available! Luckily we had some chopped beet greens in the freezer, so I just thawed those out and used them instead. It actually worked quite well! A bit non-traditional perhaps, but good nonetheless.

Eggs Florentine

Slightly adapted from the Breakfast Bible by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 c. Hollandaise sauce
• 4 English muffins, split and toasted
• ~2 c. (55g) fresh baby spinach (or greens of choice prepared as desired)
• 8 large eggs, poached
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Prepare your Hollandaise sauce and keep it warm over very, very low heat, stirring occasionally as you prepare the other components.
2. Toast the English muffin halves. You may butter them if you wish, but I find the Hollandaise makes the final dish buttery enough without the need to add more to the muffins.
3. Place ~1/8 of the greens on top of each muffin half.
4. Poach your eggs¹ and place one on top of each muffin half.
5. Top each egg with 2-3 Tbsp. of Hollandaise and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

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Variants

Eggs Benedict

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 c. Hollandaise sauce
• 4 English muffins, split and toasted
• 8 slices back bacon, cooked
• 8 large eggs, poached
• salt and pepper, to taste

Eggs Blackstone

Ingredients

• 4 tomatoes, sliced thick
• 1-2 tsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. minced fresh thyme (or 1/2 tsp. dried)
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1/4 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1 1/2 c. Hollandaise sauce
• 8 slices wholegrain bread, toasted
• 8 slices thick-cut smoked bacon, cooked
• 8 large eggs, poached
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) and lightly grease a rimmed baking sheet.
2. Arrange the tomatoes on the baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and thyme.
3. Roast the tomatoes at 200°C (400°F) for 25-30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, prepare the Hollandaise sauce and keep it warm while you prepare everything else.
5. Toast the bread and butter it if you'd like. (Although, as with the eggs Florentine, I don't feel that butter is really necessary.)
6. Cook the bacon and poach the eggs.
7. Top each slice of toast with some of the tomato, a slice of bacon, and an egg.
8. Spoon 2-3 Tbsp. of Hollandaise over each egg.
9. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

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¹ I recommend 3-4 minutes for soft poached or 5-6 for medium/jammy yolks. Use the freshest eggs possible as the whites of old eggs will tend to feather and spread in the water much more than fresh. Adding a bit of vinegar or other acid to the water can also help reduce feathering. I had a bit of excess lemon juice left over from making the Hollandaise, so I just used that. ^Back