Eggs Benedict

Eggs Benedictis a commonAmerican breakfastorbrunchdish, consisting of two halves of anEnglish muffin, each topped withCanadian baconor slicedham, apoached egg, andhollandaise sauce. The dish is believed to have originated in New York City.
There are conflicting accounts as to the origin of eggs Benedict.
Delmonico'sinLower Manhattansays on its menu that "Eggs Benedict was first created in our ovens in 1860."One of its former chefs,Charles Ranhofer, also published the recipe forEggs à la Benedickin 1894.
In an interview recorded in the "Talk of the Town" column ofThe New Yorkerin 1942, the year before his death,Lemuel Benedict, a retiredWall Streetstock broker, said that he had wandered into theWaldorf Hotelin 1894 and, hoping to find a cure for his morning hangover, ordered "buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon, and a hooker of hollandaise".Oscar Tschirky, themaître d'hôtel, was so impressed with the dish that he put it on the breakfast and luncheon menus but substituted ham for the bacon and a toastedEnglish muffinfor the toast.
A later claim to the creation of eggs Benedict was circuitously made by Edward P. Montgomery on behalf ofCommodore E. C. Benedict. In 1967 Montgomery wrote a letter to thenThe New York Timesfood columnistCraig Claiborne, which included a recipe he said he had received through his uncle, a friend of the commodore. Commodore Benedict's recipe—by way of Montgomery—varies greatly from Ranhofer's version, particularly in the hollandaise sauce preparation—calling for the addition of a "hot, hard-cooked egg and ham mixture".
The modern version differs a bit from these early versions and has split English muffin, topped Canadian bacon, lightly poached egg, and smothered in hollandaise sauce, which is made from eggs, lemon, and melted butter.
It is popular to make variations on eggs Benedict, and some of the most popular are eggs florentine (spinach replaces bacon), eggs royale (smoked salmon replaces bacon), eggs Sardou (spinach and artichoke replaces bacon and muffin), eggs neptune (crab replaces bacon), eggs cochon (pulled pork replaces bacon and buttermilk biscuit replaces the muffin).In many cases its become popular to simply replace the word eggs with the meat that at replaces bacon, for example, rather thaneggs neptune,crab benedict, even though the recipe still has two poached eggs.Examples of this are steak benedictor salmon benedict, and replacements include corned beef, fried chicken, or shrimp.
Many variations of eggs Benedict exist, the most common involve replacing the bacon or English muffin, or both:
Some variations involve replacing the Canadian bacon, such as lobster benedict, corned beef, or steak benedict. In other cases the bread might be changed from an English muffin, to toast, sliced potato, or a biscuit.One popular variation is to replace the Canadian bacon with smoke salmon, and it has gather a large number of names from Eggs Royale, Atlantic, Montreal, and others, and some regions have a local name for this variation.
Meatless Eggs Benedict may omit the Canadian bacon altogether, or replace it with something else such as avocado, tomato, mushroom, or tofu.There is a version of California Eggs Benedict that replaces the Canadian bacon with sliced tomato and avocado.
Eggs benedict has also been made intobreakfast sandwichby adding an additional English muffin half on top.
A version which replaces the sauce, isEggs Halifax, which substitutesNew England clam chowderfor hollandaise.