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The Biggest Mistake You're Making With Eggs Benedict, According To Valerie Bertinelli - Exclusive

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Valerie Bertinelli has made a name for herself in the food realm by helming her own cooking show on the Food Network for nearly a decade and co-hosting the popular series, "Kids Baking Championship," with Duff Goldman. The down-to-earth star also shares her favorite recipes with fans through multiple cookbooks, including her latest, "Indulge: Delicious and Decadent Dishes to Enjoy and Share." Bertinelli's recipes are relatable and within reach of any home cook, and this includes versions of seemingly-complicated recipes like eggs Benedict.

Bertinelli told Mashed in an exclusive interview that after experiencing the heartbreaking loss of both parents and ex-husband Eddie Van Halen within a few years, creating these recipes helped her heal. "As I was coming out of that and healing myself in '23, I wanted to get back in the kitchen again, because I truly found joy in the kitchen, and I had stopped," she explained. The award-winning actress said that writing the cookbook and including recipes that were tributes to family members was a version of therapy for her. One such dish was inspired by her ex-husband Eddie: his favorite touring treat, eggs Benedict.

Eggs Benedict is one of those meals people love to order when they go out for brunch, but few people attempt to make it at home, because they're worried it's too complicated. Bertinelli revealed that, when it comes to making this early-morning staple, the biggest mistake you can make is thinking that Hollandaise sauce and poached eggs are difficult to make.

Read more: 15 Mistakes Everyone Makes When Cooking Eggs

Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise sauce - Lauripatterson/Getty Images

While you can prepare different versions of this dish, a typical eggs Benedict consists of buttered English muffins, Canadian bacon, and poached eggs drizzled with Hollandaise sauce. This rich and creamy sauce is traditionally made from egg yolks, lemon juice, melted butter, salt, and pepper. "It just takes a minimal amount of patience," Valerie Bertinelli explained. "It's not that hard."

She also admitted that poaching eggs seemed particularly daunting to her at first, but now she thinks they're simple to whip up. "I have to say, if I'm making it and I make it look easy, it's because it is," the actress noted. "Because I'm not a trained chef. I am someone who has grown up in the kitchen and learned from the women before me, and they made it look just as easy."

If you're still feeling doubtful about trying your hand at the dish, Bertinelli told us there are all sorts of tricks you can use to make it easier. For instance, an eggs benedict hack that will save you time in the kitchen is to use a blender to create the Hollandaise sauce instead of doing it by hand. This way, mixing your ingredients will only take half of the time, leaving you more time to enjoy the delicious breakfast you've just created.

Valerie Bertinelli's new cookbook, "Indulge: Delicious and Decadent Dishes to Enjoy and Share," is available for purchase on Amazon.

Read the original article on Mashed

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How To Poach Eggs, Seafood, And Meat Like A Pro

While boiling and simmering are popular cooking techniques, there's a happy middle between the two, and that's poaching. Poaching is when you submerge food in hot but not boiling liquid and cook it over low heat until your ingredients — often eggs, seafood, or chicken — are just barely cooked. This delicate cooking technique imparts flavor, especially if there are aromatics in your poaching liquid, while also maintaining a delicate texture in your food. 

What are the best foods to poach?  The best foods to poach are those that benefit from this gentle cooking technique. Eggs might be the most popular of all foods to poach, for Eggs Benedict, Poached Eggs with Red Wine Sauce, and other recipes. Salmon, chicken, and fruit are also delicious when poached. In the 90s, poaching became popular for its ability to cook food without fat while still producing a moist product. However, poaching is a technique that's long been used by chefs to create and/or maintain a delicate texture in foods while still cooking them to a safe temperature.  Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Christine Keely What are the types of poaching? There are three types of poaching techniques: shallow poaching, deep poaching, and par-poaching.  Shallow poaching Shallow poaching involves cooking the food just partially submerged in liquid, often in combination with steam harnessed by covering the pan with a lid or a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside the pan, with a hole in the center to allow steam to release. The parchment paper cover is called a cartouche in French; it translates to "paper lid." The lid or cartouche traps the steam while allowing for a little evaporation, which means you can have less liquid in the pan. The liquid is often reduced into a sauce after you are done poaching the main ingredient. Some chefs spread butter on the bottom of the cold pan before adding the poaching liquid to enrich the poaching liquid and the final sauce, though you can simply add butter to the reduced liquid at the end to finish your sauce. Try this cooking method to make Shallow Poached Salmon with Leek Beurre Blanc.  Deep poaching Deep poaching, also called submersion poaching, means the food is fully submerged in the liquid while cooking. In this case, there is no need to cover the pan to trap steam, however, if your ingredients float in the poaching liquid, using a cartouche cut to fit inside the pan will help keep the ingredients submerged. Tom Colicchio uses the deep poaching method in his recipe for Poached Peaches with Baked Ricotta to ensure the peaches cook evenly and the skins will remove easily after they poach.  Par-poaching Par-poaching is like deep poaching except that the pan is removed from the heat source before the food is fully cooked. The food sits in the hot poaching liquid off the heat to finish cooking. This is the gentlest way to poach, as it puts only the most minimal heat on the ingredient, allowing for the most delicate texture. It works well in recipes like this Poached Chicken and Roasted Acorn Squash that call for poached chicken breasts, which can become stringy and chewy when overcooked. Photo by Jennifer Causey / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless / Food Styling by Ruth Blackburn What kind of liquid do you use to poach?  Poaching often uses water, wine, leftover wine, verjus, stock, or broth, but you can also poach in cream, milk, coconut milk, and citrus juice. After picking your poaching liquid, season it with butter, vinegar, citrus, onions, or herbs. Spices are a great way to flavor your liquid and even give it some color (adding turmeric to the poaching liquid gives it a vibrant color, like in Brooke Williamson's Turmeric-Poached Eggs with Chive Biscuits and Lobster Gravy). The combinations are endless and allow you to get really creative as you cook. You can also poach entirely with olive oil or butter. While butter isn't exactly a liquid, it melts into a decadent poaching base, especially for recipes like Oil-Poached Tuna and Butter-Poached Lobster. When poaching in oil or butter, you cook at a low temperature only until the food is done. It is different from confit cooking, which involves cooking for a long time until the food has broken down or is very, very soft.  How to poach any food Heat your poaching liquid, and any aromatics or flavorings, in a pot or high-sided skillet until just barely simmering, then add the food that you want to poach, such as eggs, chicken, fish, or fruit. The poaching liquid is then kept at a low temperature, between 160°F and 184°F, which is high enough to cook the food but low enough that it's not boiling, which is 212°F. This low cooking temperature allows for the food to have a soft and tender texture but still be safely prepared. Keep the temperature just below simmering, and poach your food until it is tender and cooked to your desired doneness. Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Thom Driver What is the difference between poaching, sous vide, and simmering? While all three techniques involve a pot of water, there are nuances. Sous vide translates to "under vacuum" in French and involves placing food in a vacuum-sealed bag before cooking in a temperature-controlled water bath. While there can be aromatics and herbs placed in the vacuum-sealed bag along with the food, the food does not touch the water bath as if it was being poached in liquid. Additionally, cooking sous vide generally occurs at a lower temperature, between 130°F to 165°F, then poaching.  Simmering is defined as cooking in a liquid that's just barely bubbling around the edges of the pan and means the temperature of the liquid ranges between 185°F to 205°F. Poaching occurs at a lower temperature, at approximately 160°F to 184°F, therefore cooking food at an even lower, gentler temperature then simmering. 

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"We've Cracked It": Sinless Food Offers Vegan Fried, Poached And Hard-Boiled Eggs

Sinless Food is a new business based in the North of England that produces innovative handmade alternatives to eggs.

The company's range includes:

Vegan Fried Eggs — A frozen ready-to-cook mix in six individual pots, which produces a plant-based alternative to fried eggs when cooked.

Vegan Poached Eggs — Another frozen ready-to-cook mix, available in packs of six sachets. The mix can be placed in boiling water to make a poached egg alternative.

Vegan Hard Boiled Eggs — Four individually wrapped ready-to-eat vegan boiled eggs.

Vegan Egg Roll — A ready-to-eat boiled egg-style product, sold in a sliceable roll.

Vegan "Egg" & Cress Filler — An egg and cress-style sandwich filling made with vegan mayo and Sinless Food's hard-boiled egg alternative.

The plant-based eggs are made with ingredients such as rice starch, pea protein, and pumpkin powder. They are fortified with B vitamins and contain kala namak (black salt) to provide an egg-like flavour.

© Sinless Food

Sinless Food's egg alternatives are available from various small independent retailers and cafes across the UK, along with the company's online store. To reduce the environmental impact of the products, Sinless allows customers to return their packaging free of charge to be recycled.

According to research, the plant-based egg market is expected to grow with a huge CAGR of 20.78% to reach a valuation of $9.02 billion by 2030. While dairy alternatives currently have a larger share of the plant-based market, egg alternatives are seeing more rapid growth.

"We have worked hard to offer vegans what they have been missing in an ethical and sustainable way," says Sinless Food. "It's taken months, but we think we've cracked it. We care about the long-term challenges of the modern food chain, but we also love eggs! It is our goal to provide you with the most delicious and ethical vegan products for you to enjoy without compromising on flavour, or your values."

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