Le Caprice eggs Arlington recipe

Sunday brunch at Le Caprice was a busy session with a menu very different to the rest of the week, featuring classics like chowder, corned beef hash and kedgeree. I introduced this dish to it 30-odd years ago. I’ve featured it on my menus ever since, renaming it eggs De Beauvoir when I started to smoke my own salmon in the back garden of my house on De Beauvoir Road in Hackney. Recently I have switched to using cold-smoked trout, preferring to use the large fish reared by Mark and Fiona Firth on their Dorset trout farm.

Timings

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 35 minutes

Serves

4

Ingredients

For the hollandaise sauce

• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 small shallot, roughly chopped
• a few sprigs of tarragon
• 1 bay leaf
• 5 peppercorns
• 250g unsalted butter
• 2 large egg yolks

To serve

• 2 English muffins, halved
• 4 large eggs
• 120-150g cold-smoked trout

Method

1. Put the vinegar, shallot, herbs and peppercorns in a saucepan with 2 tbsp water and heat to reduce the liquid to about a dessertspoonful. Strain and leave it to one side.
2. Melt the butter in a pan and simmer it gently for 4-5 minutes, or until it looks like it is separating. 
3. Remove it from the heat, leave to cool a little, then pour off the pure golden butter where it has separated from the paler whey. Discard the whey. This will help to keep the sauce thick. 
4. Put the egg yolks into a small stainless-steel bowl with half of the vinegar reduction and whisk over a pan of gently simmering water until the mixture begins to thicken and become frothy.
5. Slowly trickle in the butter, whisking continuously – an electric hand whisk will help. If the butter is added too quickly, the sauce will separate.
6. When you have added two-thirds of the butter, taste the sauce and add a little more or all of the vinegar reduction, and season with salt and pepper. Then add the rest of the butter. The sauce should be just vinegary enough to cut through the oiliness of the butter. Season again, if necessary.
7. Lay a piece of cling film directly on the surface of the sauce to stop it forming a skin and leave in a warm, not hot, place until needed. The sauce can be reheated briefly over a bowl of hot water and lightly whisked again, but try to avoid doing this if possible.
8. To serve, lightly toast the muffins and soft-poach the eggs. 
9. Place some trout on each muffin half with a poached egg on top, then coat with a couple of generous spoonfuls of hollandaise.