Cajun Eggs Benedict Eating Gilmore Fall Cooking Challenge Week 2

"Hey, we making the Cajun Eggs Benedict again?" "I don't know, we could." "Let's do it, it was good." "Well, the Cajun was all your doing." "Only because I knocked the cayenne pepper into your hollandaise."

Ingredients:

For the eggs benedict:

• 1 sourdough English muffin

• 1 link andouille sausage

• ½ tsp smoked paprika

• ½ tsp cayenne powder

• ½ tsp onion powder

• ½ tsp salt

• ½ tsp pepper

• 2 eggs

• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar

• ½ tbsp butter, softened

• 1 avocado, sliced thin

For the hollandaise sauce:

• 3 egg yolks

• 1 tsp dijon or whole grain mustard

• 1 tbsp lemon juice

• ¼ tsp smoked paprika

• ¼ tsp cayenne powder

• ½ tsp onion powder

• ½ tsp salt

• ½ tsp pepper

• ½ cup unsalted butter, melted

Directions:

1. Slice the English muffin in half if not already pre-sliced. Toast to your liking. Wrap in foil to keep warm.

2. Slice the andouille sausage to ¼ inch slices on the bias.

3. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat and add about ½ tbsp vegetable oil.

4. Season the sausage with the paprika, cayenne, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Then add to the skillet to cook for about 4-6 minutes on each side, or until browned and fully cooked.

5. Cover the sausage with foil to keep warm and set aside.

6. Prepare the hollandaise sauce by adding the egg yolks, mustard, lemon juice, and spices to a blender. Blend until smooth and combined.

7. Keep the blender running on low, but slowly add in the melted butter. Blend until emulsified and thick and creamy.

8. Fill a large saucepan with water (about ¾ of the way) and place over high heat.

9. While the water is reaching a boil, crack each egg into a small ramekin or bowl.

10. Once the water reaches a boil, turn off the heat.

11. Add the vinegar to the hot water and vigorously stir to create a vortex.

12. Carefully drop the first egg into the vortex.

13. You can either poach the second egg in the same pot (just don’t create a vortex this time) or cook it in a separate pot.

14. Cook the eggs for 3-4 minutes or until the whites have solidified, but the yolk is still runny. Remove from the water with a slotted spoon.

15. Butter the toasted English muffin and add sliced avocado on top. Then add a few slices of the sausage and top with a poached egg.

16. Sprinkle a bit of cayenne powder onto the eggs and serve with the hollandaise sauce.

Here we go with week 2 of my fall Eating Gilmore Challenge! I had so much fun seeing everyone’s favorite fall treats on Instagram last week, and I’m excited to kick off week 2: Fan Favorite Feast. Because this weekend is the Fan Fest Society in Ogunquit, ME, I wanted this week’s theme to be in honor of that. This week is all about fan favorites.

I did the ultimate Luke and Sookie mashup, their Cajun Eggs Benedict from 3.17 A Tale of Poes and Fire. While this isn’t my favorite dish from the show, this was a popular guess from when I covered this episode last year. If you didn’t know, every week when I share what I made for the episode, my followers on Instagram can guess what I made for that episode. So many people wanted me to make the Cajun Eggs Benedict, it felt like a fan favorite to me, and I finally followed through.

If you don’t know about my Eating Gilmore Challenge, be sure to visit my Instagram and check out the pinned post for all the details!

Happy cooking in the Hollow!

If you missed what I made for last week's challenge, catch up here!