- 7 weeks ago
Turn a single egg into a restaurant-worthy meal! In this video, Chef John shows you how to make three easy one-egg breakfasts, including a quick Eggs Benedict with eggless hollandaise, a single-serve shakshuka, and poached egg with sausage gravy over a 2-ingredient biscuit.
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00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with my three favorite one-egg breakfasts.
00:08That's right, I'm going to show you a super-fast egg benedict featuring a one-minute eggless hollandaise sauce.
00:15I'll also share a one-egg shakshuka that's off the hookah.
00:18Plus, we're going to poach an egg in a sausage gravy and serve it over a homemade biscuit
00:23that only needs two ingredients and about 15 minutes to make.
00:27I know that is a lot, so let's go ahead and get started by frying up a piece of Canadian
00:32bacon
00:32in a little bit of butter over medium-high heat.
00:36And we're not just heating ham here.
00:38We're also browning that butter a little bit, which is going to help us flavor our egg and eventually our
00:43sauce.
00:43And once we have that placed on our toasted English muffin, we will quickly add a large egg to our
00:48pan
00:49and we'll pour in two tablespoons of water and we'll cover it tightly.
00:52And we will what I like to call flat poach an egg, also known as a steamed egg,
00:58which is virtually identical to a poached egg, except much faster and, of course, flatter.
01:04And then because I'm fancy, after one minute I take off the cover and I reduce the heat to low
01:09and I go around with the edge of the spatula, trimming the egg into a perfect circle
01:13so that it looks nice on our English muffin.
01:16And no, we're not discarding that white.
01:18We're going to gather it together and place it underneath where it won't be seen,
01:22but it will definitely be eaten.
01:24And yes, in case you're wondering, you can cook your Canadian bacon in the pan with the egg at this
01:29point,
01:29but I did mine separately so I could focus on this fabulous technique,
01:34which, by the way, cooks the egg in like a minute to a minute and a half.
01:37So make sure you're poking and checking for doneness,
01:40since I definitely want to keep the egg go kind of runny.
01:43And once that's done to our liking, we'll place that on top of our Canadian bacon
01:46and we'll rush back to the stove to make our eggless hollandaise sauce,
01:51which only takes about a minute and starts with a splash of water,
01:54plus some fresh lemon juice.
01:56And I'm doing half a lemon because I like it lemony,
01:59but you can put less if you want.
02:00And what we'll do is put our heat on high and we'll add some cayenne pepper,
02:04plus a nice big pinch of salt.
02:06And as soon as that liquid starts to simmer and deglaze the bottom,
02:09we'll give the pan a swirl and we'll turn off the heat
02:12and we'll throw in a couple tablespoons of butter,
02:15which we'll cut up into some smaller pieces,
02:17and we will start swirling and shaking the pan until the butter disappears,
02:22at which point, if everything goes according to plan,
02:24you should have a perfectly emulsified eggless hollandaise sauce.
02:28And we'll quickly spoon that over our still hot egg,
02:31which we could tent with foil to keep it even warmer.
02:34But the sauce is so fast, I don't even bother.
02:37And that's it.
02:37I finished up with a shake of cayenne and some freshly snipped chives.
02:41And I'm going to grab a fork and knife and dig in.
02:44And what we have here is a much faster, lighter version of Eggs Benedict.
02:48And even though that sauce is thinner and does not have an egg yolk in it,
02:52it has the exact same flavor profile as hollandaise.
02:54And since we're eating it with an egg yolk, one could argue it might even be a smarter choice.
03:01And again, I think you have to go with a runny yolk for this,
03:04since of course that creates basically a second sauce.
03:07And while that yolk is flowing, our lemon butter sauce is soaked into our English muffin.
03:11And as I already mentioned, this is going to taste exactly like traditional Eggs Benedict.
03:16Oh, and if you're wondering about the top half of the muffin,
03:19when I'm done, I toast that separately,
03:21and I butter it and knead it with jam for dessert.
03:24But anyway, that's how you turn one egg into a special occasion breakfast
03:28in a very short amount of time with little effort.
03:31And favorite one egg breakfast number one is done.
03:35And we'll move on to a one egg shakshuka,
03:37which besides a few green onions,
03:40is going to involve some homegrown Roma tomatoes.
03:42And these are called midnight Roma,
03:44since they start out black and then eventually turn red when they're ripe.
03:48I'm also using some homegrown mild green peppers and red Jimmy Nardello.
03:53And after a couple minutes of knife work,
03:55we'll add our sliced green onions to some olive oil in a pan set over medium-high heat.
04:00And we will also toss in our salt,
04:02as well as some cumin,
04:04some smoked paprika,
04:06some turmeric,
04:07a little bit of dry oregano,
04:09some freshly ground black pepper,
04:11and then last but never least,
04:13a few shakes of cayenne.
04:15And we'll take a freakishly small wooden spoon,
04:18and we'll cook this stirring for about a minute
04:20to soften up the onions a bit.
04:22Plus, we're going to wake up our spices
04:24and infuse that olive oil with their goodness.
04:27And once that's been accomplished,
04:28we'll add our sliced peppers
04:30and our tomatoes,
04:31which I've cut in about half-inch pieces.
04:34And we'll stir all that together.
04:36And relatively quickly,
04:37those tomatoes are going to release their juices,
04:40and our sauce will start to form.
04:42And that's pretty much all there is to it.
04:44Except, you're going to have to decide how long to let your sauce cook.
04:48Okay, the tomatoes are going to collapse pretty quickly,
04:50but the peppers will take some time to soften up.
04:53And if you want those to retain a firm texture,
04:55cook it less.
04:56And if you want them nice and soft,
04:58cook it more.
04:59But the point is,
04:59you're going to have to decide.
05:01I mean, you have been, are,
05:03and always will be,
05:03the boss of your sauce.
05:05But right here,
05:06mine was looking just about perfect.
05:08And once it is,
05:09we'll use our spoon to make a little well in the center,
05:11and we will carefully transfer our egg in.
05:14Oh, and don't worry,
05:15that little black speck is black pepper.
05:18I hope.
05:19And as you can see,
05:20I was trying to center that yolk in the white,
05:22but we don't want to break it.
05:24So I came to my senses and stopped doing that,
05:27and instead started spreading the white out around the yolk,
05:30just so it maybe cooks a little bit faster
05:32and a little more evenly.
05:34And then all we need to do is cover this,
05:36and let that cook until our egg is done as we want.
05:39And something to keep in mind,
05:41when you pull this off the stove,
05:42the egg is going to continue to cook in that very hot sauce.
05:45So if you want your yolk a little bit runny,
05:47which I do,
05:48you're going to want to pull it off a little bit early.
05:51And since I have to move cameras and lights,
05:53and set up the final shots,
05:55and contractually obligated pictures,
05:56I pulled mine off even earlier than I normally would.
06:00And that's it.
06:01I grabbed some toast,
06:02since some kind of bread to dip is a requirement.
06:05And then we'll garnish with some crumbled feta,
06:07plus a scattering of chopped cilantro or parsley.
06:10And then we'll grab a spoon and dig in.
06:13After that is,
06:14I take a piece of toast,
06:15and use the pointy end to stir the yolk,
06:18which I was hoping was still a little bit runny.
06:20And happily it was.
06:22Okay, it was actually halfway between runny and jammy,
06:25which works for me.
06:26Alright, I'm not going to shame them in public,
06:28but I know people who like this with the eggs cooked all the way through.
06:32Which I just don't understand.
06:34But anyway, what we have here is a world-class one-egg breakfast,
06:38especially for anyone who has a summer garden.
06:40Alright, if you grow fresh tomatoes and peppers,
06:43and you're not making this at least once a week,
06:45you, my friend, are doing summer wrong.
06:47And if you don't garden,
06:49at least get to the farmer's market,
06:51and try this with different peppers and different tomatoes,
06:54since this is right at the top of the list of ways to enjoy them.
06:57But anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed
06:59favorite one-egg breakfast number two,
07:02which brings us to number three,
07:04which is an egg poached in a sausage gravy,
07:06served on a homemade biscuit,
07:08which, believe it or not,
07:10starts with us making one single biscuit,
07:12which sounds crazy,
07:14unless you know this two-ingredient biscuit hack,
07:16which is self-rising flour mixed with cream.
07:19And what we do is stir that together
07:21until a ball of dough forms like this,
07:24at which point we can just quickly shape it with our hand.
07:27But for something slightly nicer looking,
07:29we can use some plastic wrap to shape it into a patty.
07:32And once we get something pretty round,
07:34and about a half inch thick,
07:36and we fine-tune those sides as much as we want,
07:39we will transfer that onto a parchment-lined baking sheet,
07:42and we'll pop that into a 450-degree oven
07:45for about 12 to 15 minutes,
07:47depending on how thick it is.
07:49Or until it looks like this.
07:51And if we flip this over,
07:53it should be beautifully golden brown.
07:55And this is actually the side I want facing up
07:57when we serve our sausage gravy and egg,
08:00which, by the way, is so fast and easy,
08:02we're going to make that while the biscuit's baking.
08:05And to do that,
08:06we will add two breakfast sausage
08:07to a little bit of butter in a pan
08:09that we have set on medium-high heat,
08:11and we'll go ahead and brown that up
08:13while we break it into small pieces.
08:15And yes, of course,
08:16we've removed the casing from the sausage.
08:18Otherwise, how are you going to do this?
08:20And once we have that chopped up
08:21into nice small pieces,
08:22and it's browning nicely,
08:24we will toss in some sliced green onion,
08:27and we'll cook that straight for just about a minute.
08:29And once that's happened,
08:30we'll transfer in a little bit of flour,
08:32and we'll stir that into former roux,
08:34R-O-U-X,
08:36and we'll cook that for just one minute
08:38to take off the raw edge,
08:40at which point we can whisk in our cold milk.
08:42And as you know,
08:43hot roux plus cold milk equals no lumps.
08:46So if you enjoy a lumpy gravy,
08:48this recipe's not for you.
08:50And as soon as we whisk that in,
08:52we'll wait for this to start to simmer,
08:54and we'll toss in a pinch of freshly ground
08:56black pepper, cayenne, and salt,
08:58and we'll give it one more quick whisk.
09:00And once that does start to simmer,
09:02we'll give it a stir with a spoon,
09:04and in just about 30 seconds,
09:05this is going to thicken beautifully,
09:07and you're going to be the proud owner
09:09of what we call at the truck stop,
09:11a sausage gravy,
09:13also sometimes known as country gravy.
09:15And that's it, just like the shakshuka.
09:17We'll go ahead and transfer in our egg,
09:19which I'm not going to fuss with this time,
09:21because we're not going to present this in the pan.
09:24And we'll cover that,
09:25and let it cook to our desired doneness.
09:27And then we'll go ahead and serve up on our biscuit,
09:30which of course is piping hot,
09:32since as I mentioned,
09:33you're going to make the gravy and egg
09:34while that's baking in the oven.
09:36And after we spoon over a generous amount of sauce
09:38from around the egg,
09:40we'll grab a spatula and place the egg right on top,
09:43and then we'll finish up by spooning over
09:45the rest of the sauce,
09:46which I'm going to do around the outside,
09:48around the outside, around the outside,
09:50so I don't completely cover that beautiful egg.
09:53And even though that egg might have been
09:55slightly undercooked when we started this plating,
09:57by the time all that hot gravy is spooned around,
10:00it's going to be perfectly set,
10:01as you'll see when I slice in.
10:03And that's it,
10:04we'll finish up with some freshly sliced green onions,
10:07and we'll check to see how we did with the yolk,
10:09which I'm going to say is not bad.
10:11And we again hit that sweet spot
10:13between runny and jammy.
10:15And I would be more than happy
10:16with just a freshly baked biscuit,
10:18topped with this creamy,
10:19super savory sausage gravy.
10:21But when you combine it with the egg,
10:23you're looking at a classic case
10:25of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
10:28But anyway, that's it.
10:29The last of my three favorite one-egg breakfasts.
10:33Although I probably should have called it
10:34my three favorite one-egg meals.
10:36All right, I don't want to sound like a life coach here.
10:39But when you've had one of those days
10:40where just nothing went right,
10:42on those occasions,
10:43the best way to turn things around
10:45is to have breakfast for dinner.
10:47And all three of these recipes would be perfect for that.
10:49But whether you enjoy these in the evening
10:52or for lunch or for an actual breakfast,
10:55they're all fast, easy, and delicious.
10:57And I really do hope you give them a try soon.
11:01So please follow the links below
11:03for the ingredient amounts,
11:05a printable written recipe,
11:06and much more info as usual.
11:08And as always, enjoy.
11:13Enjoy.
11:14Enjoy.
11:19Enjoy.