Prepare a Savory Breakfast Dish of Eggs Royale

While sweet breakfasts can be a nice treat from time to time, savory breakfasts tend to be my staple morning meal. Dishes like Eggs Benedict are one of my favorites, with an exquisite mélange of tastes, textures and colors. Actually, Eggs Benedict is probably my favorite western breakfast of all time (with Huevos Rancheros coming in a close second).

There are just two problems. The first, is that the level of effort needed to make the Hollandaise sauce, makes it more of a weekend brunch than a weekday breakfast. The second issue, is that after having a plate of Eggs Benny a few weekends in a row, I've grown a little bored with the combination. This weekend I decided to mix things up a bit and turn it into something new.

When I first made this, I didn't know it actually had a name, but after some Googling, it turns out I wasn't the first to come up with the concept (or even the second or the third). With enough aliases to be a bandit on the lam this dish is also known as Eggs Royal, Eggs Atlantic, Eggs Hemingway, Eggs Montreal, or Eggs Copenhagen. I ended up going with "royale" with an extra "e" because it not only sounds better, my version isn't just a run of the mill Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, it's topped with salmon caviar!

Eggs with an egg and butter sauce with salmon eggs on top may sound a bit excessive, but trust me, it's the caviar that makes this dish both literally and figuratively pop. With a nutty layer of crusty bread, a savory layer of smoked salmon, a creamy layer of eggs, a rich tangy layer of lemon infused hollandaise and the salty salmon caviar on top, you end up with alternating layers of texture and salt, making this far better balanced than a traditional Eggs Benedict.

The assembled dish is a visually stunning golden tower of goodness studded with emerald chives and crowned by a mound of fire opal caviar. Regal appearance, along with a refined balance of contrasting tastes and textures makes this dish more than live up to its name.

To speed the hollandaise up, I tried making the hollandaise in the blender. To be honest, it's not quite as rich and creamy as a traditional hollandaise made on a double boiler, but it's much less work and tastes a little lighter. If you want to make this with a traditional Hollandaise, just hop over to my Eggs Benedict recipe to get the recipe for that. Also, if you haven't mastered the art of poaching eggs yet, head over to my step-by-step guide on making perfect poached eggs.