Oh, God. This is great, this is great,
this is terrible.
Hi guys, I’m Chef Mimi. I’m
here today in the Upper East Side to
cook eggs benedict for you all.
But before we get started,
subscribe below.
Typically, I cook at Vinatería,
which is in Harlem, but today
I need to know
whose kitchen is this?
Hi, I’m Shoshana and this is my “kitchen”.
Only eggs have ever been cooked in it.
The back burner is temperamental, so I’ve
never used it,
and whenever I attempt to use it,
it looks like it’s going to explode
and be safe!
Solid [laughs].
My first reaction upon opening
the door was: this apartment is tiny,
but in the same sense I also knew
in the back of my mind that
it’s alright because everything’s
workable.
Alright, well we got water...and
alcohol, good.
It’s small, but I knew we would be okay.
First, I’m gonna make the
biscuit dough. I see first thing here
that we have is a mason jar,
which also perfectly
has measurements on it.
¼ of a cup of every flour.
So, I like to consider
myself what I call a backyard baker.
I like to do a little bit of this and a little bit
of that. Having a mason jar to
measure was not very precise, but
it also just gave me
kind of in the general direction of like
cool, this is about what I need.
Baking powder,
it’s 1 teaspoon so I’m just gonna
know in the palm of my hand.
Baking soda, the reason
we have both is it’s gonna help
biscuits really rise up.
Salt for ½ teaspoon. We gotta
sugar now. Butter, we’re gonna use about
2 ½ tablespoons.
You always wanna make sure
that your butter is very cold,
you don’t want it to melt.
Your hands are perfectly
fine to be your mixer.
I had an ex-girlfriend who loved breakfast
so because of that I’ve
made biscuits probably,
over the course of three years,
like 50-70 times. We’re well
on our way to making really great biscuits
this morning. When I grip it, it’s already
starting to some together and I
haven’t even added any wet ingredients.
Heavy cream
and I’ve got 1 egg, whisk this together,
mix a little in at a time.
Now I’m just kneading
the dough together.
It’s already at a consistency that I’m
not gonna use any more of the liquid
for fear that it’s gonna
make my batter too runny.
We’re gonna set it in the fridge and
let it rest.
So you’re probably wondering why
I’m sitting on the floor.
Well, this is the best possible workspace
that we have.
I can’t say that I’ve ever worked on the
floor in my 15-year career, but there's a
first time for everything.
Well, her floor’s pretty clean.
And I’m gonna casually dry
our floor off here.
Got some paper bags that I've
just cut up quickly. So we’re all taped
down. I’ve found
this bottle of tequila, and since
we don’t have a rolling pin
I’m gonna wrap it in some plastic
just to keep it
clean because I don’t like my tequila dirty.
If you’re feeling nervous
you should probably just go ahead and
take a shot of this tequila
before you even start. I don’t have to roll
too much, I’m just kind of looking
for half an inch. We’re gonna need
something to make
the shape so we can actually
have the biscuit itself.
So we’ve got a mug, we have this
cup. I’ve got a little mason jar here,
and this is a perfect size because
if you think about it, our egg
will fit perfectly on top. With your
extra dough you can ball it up and
do the same thing again.
Kind of an ugly biscuit.
And there we go. This is actually a great
work surface down here.
So next I’m gonna take the biscuits,
and I’m gonna place them
on our toaster oven.
Can’t say I’ve ever used one of
these before but.
Okay, yep, don’t
know what I’m doing.
[Toaster dings]. Nope,
yes, so I’ve gotta do like 375. It feels
like it’s ready now, so I’m gonna go
ahead and throw them in
and we’re gonna check on
them in like 10 minutes, see what we get.
My biscuits are all done,
I’ve got two sponges
here which is gonna be perfect,
actually, to take them out.
Two dry sponges, not wet.
Be careful when you do this.
I’m looking at the biscuits, and I’m
really happy with
them, they smell delicious,
they’re perfect.
Next we’re gonna make the
Hollandaise sauce.
I’m gonna need egg yolks
and we’re gonna need butter
and then the other things I’m
gonna look for are an acid.
Lemon juice is perfect
and also some peppercorn. A little
bit of butter, I’m gonna microwave it
at probably 30 seconds.
Alright and that was
about 8 tablespoons of butter.
So now I’m gonna take my eggs, and I’m
gonna separate them.
I think for me I like using my hands best.
One more, in here I’ve
got my 4 egg yolks.
My lemon juice, does anyone
have a whisk here? No?
A trusty fork here
that we’re gonna use.
You know when it’s ready to add the
fat to the egg yolks. When
I do this now I can tell
I can’t hold in figure 8,
it means I have a ways to go with
whisking. While I start to do this, I’m
gonna go ahead and put some
water in my pot,
and the point of this water is
to not boil it you wanna simmer it.
While we do that I’m gonna
just keep whisking away,
which might take a little longer since
we don’t have a whisk.
This is definitely an arm workout.
Woo! I am breaking a little
bit of a sweat right now.
So, since this is taking a long time
and my wrist is getting
tired. I’m gonna grab another fork.
I can see my 8 which
is what I’m looking for.
So that’s how you know you’re ready.
And then my pot of water
over here is up now to
a boil, so I’m gonna go ahead and
just turn it down just a little bit.
And the objective really of
putting this over, you don’t
wanna fry the egg yolks.
It’s about lightly cooking them
thoroughly all the way through,
so I can see now that it’s a really
nice thick, runny
sauce. We’re gonna go ahead then
and slowly start to add our fat to it.
A little bit of
my butter and whisk really heavily
because this is the part where you
really want these
two ingredients to come together,
and if you do a lot and don’t
whisk quickly, then they’re
not gonna come together.
A little bit of fresh cracked pepper in there
and then also salt.
Let’s see what we got.
Tastes really good.
As soon as the Hollandaise
started to thicken
up and I could see my figure 8,
it was like the moment of relief
in my mind like alright,
we’re now on cruise control.
We’re gonna go ahead and start
cooking our Canadian bacon.
Smells like breakfast in here.
And if you can hear that sound,
that’s the sound of
awesome, and I’m gonna give them
one more flip and then
we’re gonna go ahead and be
done. I’m gonna set those aside,
and we’re gonna start doing our poached
eggs. Also I’m gonna add a little bit of
vinegar to the water, which helps the eggs
come together. Maybe like 3 tablespoons.
It’s a trick like every restaurant I’ve ever
worked in, they’ve always used.
I’m gonna probably poach 2 eggs
at a time just to speed
things up a little bit.
Don’t touch them until they’ve
been in there and you
start to really see the egg white
form otherwise the yolk will break.
See how they have a little
bit of resistance, so I know they’re
cooked and runny still.
So I’m actually gonna take
which I did call my ugly biscuits
that I think are pretty,
I’m gonna use my ugly biscuits
for this, and then I’m gonna
gently take my poached
eggs again. So we’re just gonna do
a little bit of freshly
cracked pepper on top and that’s
it. I can’t believe I pulled that off.
The most frustrating part about
this process was
whisking the Hollandaise sauce
with no whisk. A little more
muscle than I thought, but I
feel good about that.
That’s a really good eggs benedict,
if I do say so myself.
Being
a backyard baker, in the end,
it helped me out.
Thank you so much for watching today
guys.
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