January Jambalaya

EGGS BENEDICT:

I have made one perfect Eggs Benedict in my life. A beautiful Hollandaise Sauce with flawlessly Poached Eggs. I kind of thought I had it down.

Today, I was rudely reminded that the Eggs Benedict I refer to above was made more than a year ago. The version I made this morning was a sorry excuse for the dish, and if served at a restaurant, would have been thrown back in the chef's face. I attempted my first round of Hollandaise as a single serving, cutting down the recipe I had to a single egg yolk and all other ingredients at the same ratio. It was going alright until I poured in too much Worcestershire Sauce and walked away for 10 seconds too long, totally scrambling the egg. I thought I could salvage it, but the sauce turned out runny and gross. In the trash it went.

I quickly rebounded to made a second attempt at the sauce, this time babysitting it like I knew I was supposed to. I got the sauce to a good consistency, but the butter I'd rationed out hadn't all been used up yet. So instead of being smart and just stopping where it looked good, I tried to get all the butter in there. And of course, it also looked way to runny now. So I threw in another egg yolk. Bad idea. The sauce thickened a little more, but it was not right. I still ate it though.

My eggs were poached well (a little over done - 3 minutes is better than 4), and the ham was delicious. English Muffin was under toasted though, and now I have two rounds of sauce dishes to worry about cleaning for the rest of my morning. I look forward to hopefully doing better next week.

SOURDOUGH BREAD:

Something went slightly awry with the bread loaf this week. When we made the dough, I forgot to stir the starter before using it, and I think that was the major issue. We didn't get the same rise out of it during the proofing processes, and it ended up baking very oddly... the center rose almost too well, while the exterior "skin" barely grew at all. We ended up with an almost rose-like shape this week which feels very dense and heavy. We also unfortunately found an undercooked portion in the center of the bread. The taste, however, is just as good as last time. So we will be happy to still enjoy it very much this week!

JAMBALAYA #1:

We needed a base to start out with for Jambalaya, because I didn't have a saved recipe from any time we may have cooked it before! So we started with Emeril's Jambalaya recipe that we found on the food network's recipe website. It was a really good start, but we've already taken a few notes for next time: more salt, less rice (it made SO MUCH), less cook time for the shrimp, more paprika for the color, and chicken and sausage are always so much better when they're hard seared first. So we'll try all of that next time. Notes are taken, recipe is revised and we're ready for the week ahead. 5 day countdown to the next adventure!