- Hey guys, Chef Nyesha Arrington here,
and we are talking the beloved English muffin.
We are going to make them from scratch
with all of the nooks and all of the crannies.
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Order of operation.
Let's get our yeast blooming,
which needs to feed to create those nooks
and create those beautiful crannies.
The yeast needs a little bit of time
to almost ferment in that warm milk.
So we're just gonna pour the yeast in and set that aside.
I'm going to dump the AP flour in,
and a little bit of kosher salt goes in the bowl as well,
and lots of love, of course.
Get the yeast in here.
Mixy, mixy do a little shimmy while it's mixing.
Let's go English muffin dough.
So the dough should look kind of shaggy.
You want this sort of shaggy style dough.
That's ultimately gonna give us
the best nooks and crannies.
So you wanna knead the dough for about eight to 10 minutes,
and it'll be a little bit sticky at first, which is okay.
And when we're kneading,
very important to kind of pull out away from you
'cause that's what's going to give us
these beautiful nooks and crannies.
I'm just kind of pushing out and away
and tucking and folding.
Okay, so now that we have our English muffin dough,
what we're going to do is allow this dough to rest
so beautifully in this beautiful glass bowl here.
So goodnight, little English muffin dough.
We will miss you.
Take a little nappy-poo, rest, get your life together.
I'm going to let this rest
for about 12 hours in the refrigerator.
I like a good, slow ferment.
It's definitely my jam.
So I'm going to place
just a nice light linen napkin over the top
and just allow this to develop flavor and texture.
So we're gonna get into portioning this dough.
Definitely we want to cut down the dough
into equal portions.
To shape the dough,
we don't want too much flour on the work surface,
actually just do a light dusting.
It's just so that the flour can get
just a little bit into the crevices and the grooves.
And from here, really, what I want to do
is sort of wrap the dough in and on itself
to create a nice uniform, smooth, outer surface.
We want to enclose the bottom
and use this portion of the hand to shape the dough.
So it will tighten up over time and you can feel that.
So you're using your fingers to coax under the dough
and bring it up and it should be kind of perky.
My God, they're little buddies.
We definitely want to punch in
and capture all of that beautiful air and fermentation
because as these rise once more,
we'll start to see those air bubbles and pockets.
I like to use a mixture of both semolina and cornmeal.
So I get that beautiful sort of crunch and texture
from the cornmeal,
and then just a light dusting of the semolina
so that it doesn't stick to the pan.
I'm not trying to go for this
perfect round English muffin.
It's gonna taste exactly the same
no matter what shape it is,
but for sake of breakfast sandwich purposes,
we will make them round.
So just a nice little light, flat surface,
and then I'll just sort of tap them into that corn meal,
and then just allow them to proof once more
and be really patient with these.
This is not something that's gonna happen right away.
Okay, little babies, time to take another little siesta.
I will cover you and tuck you in.
We're making gribiche sauce.
Gribiche sauce is one of my favorite sauces.
I love the way a gribiche sauce tastes
on a breakfast sandwich.
So I like to use a mixture of chives, tarragon, and parsley.
And then I just give them a rough chop.
I love shallots so much.
Mise en place, slicing the pickles.
And I like to use equal parts capers to pickles.
Capers, welcome to the party.
Capers meet cornichons.
I will add some Dijon mustard.
I love a good Dijon-forward aioli, vinegar,
a little bit of yolk, call it two egg yolks.
This is gonna be the base for our sauce.
And from there, we'll start to emulsify
or slowly drizzle in a fat.
In this case, we're using grapeseed oil,
cayenne pepper into our aioli.
I'm gonna add in my chopped capers,
my sliced cornichons, and shallots here.
Great.
So a chopped egg.
You know how to chop an egg.
Don't need to overthink it.
I love the jammy yolk like this.
That is going to go into our sauce base.
It's done.
English muffin time, ah.
So happy, they look great.
Thanks for taking a little nap.
And so now we want to get our pan a little bit hot
because we want that sort of classic crispy texture
around the outside.
And then what I'm going to do is finish
these English muffins in the oven,
but I really am taking the time
to carefully remove these from the pan.
I do not want to destroy one tiny bubble.
We want to preserve all of those bubbles,
because then that translates
into the nooks and also the crannies.
Cheffing it up.
Check these babies.
We've got some color going.
Very, very important too,
I love to use a great griddle or a cast iron pan.
I would not suggest using like stainless steel.
You're not gonna get a really beautiful
even heat distribution, a beautiful even coloration.
Stainless steel pans are great
for sauteing and quick cooking,
but cast iron pans,
it's just an amazing sort of all-purpose pan
that has a very even cooktop surface.
Great, okay.
So I'm putting these English muffins in the oven.
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Look at them, just look at them.
Open this guy up.
Steamy.
We have the English muffins.
Toasted this for the most ultimate breakfast sandwich.
Yeah, I mean, I'm really stoked mostly about the aroma
that's coming off of these English muffins,
really phenomenal.
And it's so empowering to be able to make something that,
generally, I imagine a lot of people
are buying their English muffins,
but there's very few ingredients to make these,
and these have been such an amazing childhood favorite.
So to bring them to life is absolutely amazing.
We got the little nooks, the little crannies in there.
Let the assembly commence.
So I love these little pockets in here
that hold the butter and hold jam.
You could use cheese, ham, hash browns.
That's what I'm going to do,
but there's nothing better
than a heavily toasted English muffin
with great butter, amazing Maldon sea salt,
and an awesome strawberry jam or grape jam,
whatever you see fit.
But I'd love the toasted English muffin
and these little nooks, they're in there to capture
those little bubbles and pockets of butter.
Oh my gosh, and scene.
We have the most beautiful English muffin
followed by some delicious Canadian bacon
and some delicious melty cheese.
Then a sunny side up egg.
I love to put hash browns on breakfast sandwiches.
I just think you're like one-stop-shop, breakfast, go.
And then the most awesome gribiche sauce.
Yes, I'm going for it.
Oh my gosh.
The texture of the English muffin is impeccable,
very tender.
This egg yolk is moisturizing the entire sandwich.
Awesome gribiche sauce, can not get enough of this.
I hope that you make the sandwich at home.
I'm very happy.
This is a one-stop shop.
You got your hash browns,
you got your eggs all in one concealed.
This is what you do.
You wake up in the morning, say you're hungry,
you hop up out your bed.
You make your little sandwich, wrap it up,
make it to go, and take it with you.
Easy, enjoy.