Hollandaise starts with a Mexican morning

Photograph ©2014, Lori Korleski Richardson

My Food and Wine newsletter this weekend contained a most intriguing sauce: Avocado Hollandaise. I love poached eggs, but don't often eat them a la Benedict because of the copious amount of butter that goes into the topping. This sounded much healthier, and easy enough to do on a weekday.

I made the sauce while waiting for my Virginia ham slices to cook to a caramel perfection, today using a layer of orange juice in the pan (the package said to use cola or brown sugar and water).

I found that English muffins now come in a higher fiber, multigrain version, and they were quite tasty. Jim toasted them as I poached the eggs in boiling water to which I added a little salt and lemon juice.

Here's the recipe for the sauce:

Avocado Hollandaise

Serves: 4

Ingredients
1/2 very ripe medium Hass avocado, peeled and chopped
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
Poached eggs, for serving

Instructions
In a blender, combine the avocado and lemon juice with 1/3 cup of hot water. Puree until smooth and light in texture, about 2 minutes, scraping down the side of the bowl occasionally. With the machine on, drizzle in the olive oil and purée until combined. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the hollandaise over poached eggs.

Blogger's note: Your avocado half may be larger than the one tested. If your purée isn’t moving after 2 minutes, add a little more hot water until it does, then add the olive oil, salt and pepper.

From Food and Wine, contributed by Kay Chun
Photograph ©2014, Lori Korleski Richardson