$149 vs $9 Eggs Benedict: Pro Chef & Home Cook Swap Ingredients

I don't know how they're going to cut this together

but I have been whisking for 15 minutes straight

and I'm sweating.

Tom cruise jumps out of planes.

Daniel makes hollandaise by hand.

[light music]

Hi, I'm Saul, I'm a professional chef and in this box

are all the ingredients for $149 eggs benedict.

Hi, I'm Daniel.

I am home cook,

and these are my nine dollar eggs benedict ingredients.

[light music]

This is bigger.

Let's find out what's in here.

Well all right.

Oh, some of my favorite ingredients.

Not most of them, but some of my favorite ingredients.

It's a nice box, thank you.

[light music]

Alright, eggs benedict with guanciale,

polenta cake and truffle hollandaise.

So I was planning to make eggs benedict

with guanchale, my favorite Italian bacon,

polenta cakes and truffle hollandaise sauce.

I had some nicer ingredients to work with.

For my hollandaise, I got some black summer truffles.

Wow, I've never actually seen a truffle up close.

This looks like a lump of coal.

Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

You can smell it through the packaging,

that's how you know it's good.

A little bit of white truffle oil.

Never used this before.

[Saul] Organic butter.

Fancier than what I have.

[Saul] Lemon juice, tobasco and white whine.

Very familiar with this.

[Saul] I got some organic fresh eggs.

I mean I guess you kind of need those for eggs benedict.

White whine vinegar, looks really fancy.

And everything I needed to make

fresh homemade polenta cakes.

Gotta love salt.

I've never cooked with bay leaves.

[Saul] Fine corn meal.

This is all in Italian so odds of me figuring this out,

is gonna be slim to none.

[Saul] Whole milk, extra virgin olive oil,

Parmigiano-Reggiano and Mascarpone cheese.

I'm sure it's great.

[Saul] All served with guanciale.

What [laughs], I don't know.

Oh, pork jowls, okay.

Those exist.

[Saul] Arugula, chives.

Well I know how to use chives now from the galets.

I'm not as afraid of chives as I once was.

But you know, this is a new adventure, it's a new day,

I don't know what these chives hold,

they could kill me, I'm not sure.

And freshly grated Parmigian cheese.

It was going to be very very good,

why you take this from me?

That is more than I had for sure.

Probably like seven times over.

So with Daniel's recipe,

I got simpler ingredients.

The eggs benedict that I had was

no where near this extravagant.

My favorite thing, avocade, avocado.

My idea of fancy was throwing an avocado on there

'cause you know, you go out,

they charge you extra for avocado and guac

so I figured hey, that's fancy enough.

Canadian bacon, I love Canadian bacon.

I love bacon in general.

English muffins.

Unsalted butter.

Cayenne pepper.

Lemon, the lime cousin, or nephew or uncle, or step family.

Eggs, these ingredients might be simple,

but I'm gonna use my chef's skills to make this even better.

If I have to guess, all the ingredients,

it probably cost around 9.75.

Yes, see I know my numbers,

I'm gonna play the lotto today.

If I had to guess, I would think all of this

would probably run me $115.

150, for breakfast?

[light music]

Welcome to my restaurant, Cantina Rooftop.

I'm here alone in my kitchen

and normally I wear this all the time,

but to make this video,

I am going to remove it.

Don't you wanna see this face?

Eggs benedict isn't something I would normally cook up,

I've always considered it sort of like a fancy thing.

Like whenever I'd go out to breakfast with my family,

it was always something that we would just order off

the menu because we wouldn't have at home.

So having all these fancy things here now,

it's a little intimidating.

Honestly, from the bottom of my heart,

where is it?

Right here [laughs]?

It's my favorite brunch item.

It's kind of like the perfect way to start

your Saturday or your Sunday.

I have nothing to go off of things,

no measurements, no nothing, it's like a treasure map

that doesn't show you where the treasure is.

Poached eggs seem to be pretty cut and dry.

It's eggs, vinegar, salt and New York City water.

What?

[laughs] It's a New Yorker thing.

We have the best water.

If someone used regular water

from other parts of the world, it won't taste the same.

Truffle hollandaise.

Now, my hollandaise was like,

what three ingredients maybe?

Four tops, this has nine ingredients!

Oh man, okay, I had no idea.

Can I call Rose, Rosemary Trout?

Food scientist, is that allowed?

Rose! Hello!

My guardian angel.

You do not even need a guardian angel,

you're gonna get this.

It's gonna be good!

I'm a little bit in the weeds.

I guess, I guess, help please. Where do you wanna start?

Maybe the polenta cakes. Okay.

Because I'm just used to an English muffin.

Because this is gonna take the place of the English muffin

it's gonna be the base of your eggs benedict

so you're gonna want it a little bit thicker.

Okay. And you're gonna

wanna stir it but you don't want it to be runny,

you want it to be thick enough so that when it's cold,

it actually congeals and it firms up

and then you can make shapes out of it.

And then you're gonna wanna do that first I think

because you wanna get it cold.

Okay.

'Cause at the end, you probably wanna fry it

a little bit. Okay!

So that it gets the nice crispiness to the outside.

So what else do you have?

So I've got truffle hollandaise.

It's really a butter sauce

that's thickened with egg yolks.

Get a good emulsion started with your continuous space,

slowly drizzle in your clarified butter,

whisking the whole time, slow, low heat.

It's a bit of a workout

which I think you might like.

You're gonna wanna whisk and whisk and whisk.

If you dump all the butter in at once,

you're gonna flatten the spheres

and you're gonna get separation.

Okay. So you're gonna cook it

I think over a double boiler is what I would recommend.

Don't have boiling water, just simmering water.

'Cause you don't want scrambled eggs for this eggs benedict.

You know what's funny?

All of these episodes, I never get to eat the food.

Oh that's a problem. And I'm always like,

who wouldn't love eggs benedict right now?

We gotta fix that, come on.

Yeah! I wish I could send it

to you virtually somehow. So do I.

But you know, for the next one, we could do it together.

Sounds great!

All right well thanks, good luck,

I can't wait to see the final product.

See ya, Daniel. Bye Rose!

All in all I feel like I have a much better grasp

on what exactly I'm supposed to do

with these foreign objects in front of me.

I'm a little nervous I will say with the hollandaise by hand

just like making sure that sauce doesn't break,

that might break my spirit is what that's gonna do [laughs].

So instead of English muffin,

I'm going to make Mexican English muffins,

also known as gorditas.

So we have corn flour, I'm gonna add a little bit of salt

and then the manteka, pork lard.

My Mexican olive oil, maybe a little bit more,

sorry I just love manteka.

We're gonna add the water and the key is to make sure

that the dough doesn't stick to your hands.

If it doesn't stick to your hands,

that means that it's almost there.

Well Rose said to start with the Polenta cakes,

that's water from New York City tap.

Got the milk in here, I will say off the bat

adding milk to water just, it's a little weird.

Hey, what do I know, nothing!

And then I'm gonna toss a bay leaf in here,

I have so many bay leaves and you only need one.

So there must be a lot of flavor in this thing,

I'm hoping, all right so we're gonna heat this up

and get started on the rest.

Work the dough for like five minutes, add more water.

And just keep doing this until you have a nice dough.

Almost there, eh ready.

So now it's gordita time!

Next step in my polenta prep is

I'm gonna grate some cheese,

I'm gonna grate, I don't know,

maybe like half of this.

Real loosey goosey here.

It smells like it's very very pungent.

I wonder if they can slow mo this like cha cha cha cha cha,

go go go go go.

Cheese is grated, next I'm going to line this pan.

Alrighty, parchment paper is lookin' good

and we are ready for whatever the next step is.

So now what you have to do,

you have to make some little balls,

like around three ounces and now just have fun doing this.

It's like you're clapping,

you're clapping to keep the world safe.

Make sure it doesn't break it to the edges.

Edges if they start breaking,

that means that the dough needs more water.

My Mexican English muffins, AKA gorditas.

Now I'm going to prep the hollandaise sauce.

So I'm gonna start with the lemon juice.

We got half a lemon here, couple seeds got in there

but it's okay, you can just scoop those out.

Like it never happened.

Going to grate the moon rock.

I'm curious what this looks like on the inside

because it feels like part of a reptile.

Okay, let's see.

Whoa, it's like this weird, brown,

like moist cardboard.

I don't know, I don't know man, it's kind of,

I don't know if I dig the smell that much.

Okay, now for the eggs.

Oh the one thing I do know about hollandaise

is that you're separating the yolks from the whites.

So that is what I'm doing now with my limited knowledge.

And I think that my prep for the hollandaise is

lookin' pretty good!

So it's gordita times guys,

so you're gonna put it on a flat top,

you can do this at home in a saute pan,

make sure your heat is not that high

so you don't burn it, we wanna throw a little bit of oil

just to get some crunchiness on it.

Okay, so now you're gonna leave it there,

and let them cook.

Alrighty, I truthfully, have never used polenta before.

But I do make oatmeal and I sort of feel like

this might be the same thing.

So Daniel, when you make your polenta cakes,

here's what you have to do.

When you have the milk and the water on the pot,

make sure there's no boiling, lower the heat.

The milk and the water have started to simmer.

And add the polenta little by little.

And I am going to slowly, as I whisk sort of add

the polenta in and just I'm hoping that this is the way

this is supposed to go.

There's a fly in here and at some point I'm gonna just like

wapoosh, get it, when I see it it's game time.

Almost ready, if you want this really crispy,

just let 'em be, don't bother them too much.

Look at me, flipping it every two seconds [laughs].

That's what a Mexican once in a while means,

you do it every two seconds [laughs].

Smells pretty cool.

It smells different than oatmeal, that's for sure.

Also feeling with the hollandaise it's gonna be

a day of heavy whisking, this is starting to get

a little thicker, I'm gonna turn the heat down

just a little bit, yeah this is gettin' it.

And they're ready, there you have it, our gorditas.

I'm gonna taste a little bit.

They just taste like cornmeal.

So should definitely add some salt.

Could I tell you

mmm, there's bay leaf in this?

Honestly, probably not, but maybe it's just because

I've never tasted bay leaf before.

I'm gonna let this cool,

probably for the next 20 to 30 minutes

while I work on clarifying butter.

Oh, ah I missed it.

I'm gonna get it, you watch.

So it's clarification time,

we're gonna clarify our butter.

So we're gonna start with a cold pan,

always use unsalted butter, always always,

low heat very important,

we don't want any coloring to the butter.

So I've got the European-style unsalted butter,

so I think I'm gonna do just like maybe half of this.

Like when I think of this I think of like ice cream.

There's a little part of me that's like ah!

Now it's boiling, lower the heat again,

and now I don't know if you can see it

but all of the, this all started coming up.

I'm gonna push this to one side and then just scoop

all this dairy solids, it's all white.

So just kinda skimming off just this like white,

foamy mass which I'm assuming is just all the milk solid.

It's like very like, almost like meditative.

[laughs] Who would've thought?

You know, scraping milk chunks off hot

butter would be cathartic.

When it's nice and hot wanna strain this

to hold all of the dairy solids.

Look at this beauty.

What we have here, should be just clarified butter.

Looks pretty good.

Now I wanna make sure it tastes good.

[laughs] I'm kidding, I'm not that crazy.

So I'm gonna take my newly clarified butter

and kind of set it aside for

the rest of the hollandaise ingredients

and hope that everything goes well!

All right guys so I'm going to make poached eggs.

First of all, you have to make sure this waters boiling.

Salt, a little bit of white vinegar

and now we're gonna make the tornado.

As we do that, we're going to drop the eggs gently.

One two three, go.

And now we just have to wait three minutes

and just let the water do the work,

let the egg enjoy the hot tub.

All right so, the polenta is now I think

ready for finishing it's been kind of sitting

on the back burner here on a low heat

and this is like pretty thick

and I'm gonna add cheese to it just like Rose said

to give it that silky smoothness,

but first I have to find the bay leaf

and then just take that out.

All right, so I'm gonna add some cheese,

so I'm gonna do half of the mascarpone,

'cause I'm hoping the cheese just kind of incorporates.

It's been three minutes,

so when you remove it, gently drop it into the water.

Ice water is gonna stop for the egg to keep cooking,

if it's firm, that means that it's a little bit overcooked.

If it's nice and soft, we have a perfect poached egg.

And I guess the last bit is going to be

the Parmigiano-Reggiano, so this is very thick,

not gonna lie to you I'm like startin' to work up

a little bit of a sweat here.

I kind of wanna try it, wow, that is bangin.

The only way I can describe this is thick

but also silky and smooth

which I think is exactly what Rose is talkin' about

so I'm excited and I'm gonna slowly just pour this in here

and then smooth it out and let it cool for a bit.

There's like a big part of me that just wants to keep

eating this with a spoon it's so good.

Alrighty so I'm gonna throw some plastic wrap on this

and put it in the fridge, let it cool for a little bit

and prep the rest of whatever needs to happen.

[metal clanking]

It's hollandaise time!

So I'm gonna make a classic hollandaise sauce

and then I'm going to add a little surprise.

I'm gonna use the same pot that I used to poach my eggs,

just to kind of put it on top.

But before I do that, I have to put the egg yolks

because what happens if this is hot,

you will start to scramble the egg yolks.

We're gonna add a little big of salt, add some lemon.

Little bit of lemon juice,

little bit of tap water and some wine

and then a little bit of tabasco sauce

and introduce this to the heat

and slowly just sort of whisk this back and forth.

So we're cooking this in a very low heat

and just take your time,

just keep doing this until they're nice and fluffy.

Phew, Rose was not joking,

this is a workout, this is like oh yeah, you want breakfast?

You gotta earn your breakfast!

I mean his looks about double the volume,

it definitely is lighter in color,

so I don't know maybe now it's time to add some butter.

Now the eggs cook a little bit,

I'm gonna add the clarified butter.

So gonna add this little by little,

start looking good already, nice and thick,

as you add in the butter it's getting thicker.

We're almost there,

and I'm still trying to be careful not to over pour.

I don't wanna jinx it because if this breaks,

I will cry, I will cry right here in my own kitchen, whoa!

Okay, so we're almost done, just gonna add

the rest of the butter, voila!

I know it looks like a lot of work but hey,

if you're making this for your family, take your time.

I get it, it's like you do all this work

and I imagine like serving this to somebody,

I could see where you'd be really prideful, whoa, okay!

All the butter in there, this is silky,

it is definitely light and there's a lot in here,

like I said, it's crazy how four egg yolks

can go this far, Rose wanted me to finish this with

some stuff so I'm gonna throw in,

I'm gonna do like a tiny bit of this truffle oil here.

And be careful with them too,

'cause a little goes a long way,

'cause they're really quite pungent.

Wow, this stuff is potent, whoa, wow, that's insane.

We're gonna add a little bit of pepper and just a little

bit of cayenne or maybe a lot because I like spicy.

I'm gonna add my shaved truffle

and then the finishing touch here

is just a little bit of the Parmigian.

I think this is okay.

Almost ready guys, almost ready.

Hmm, delicious, delicious!

Smells good.

Worth it!

Yeah, this is really good, wow!

The truffle gives you that weird like velvety rich

mouth feel, the Parmigian adds a lot of salt

and for as much butter as I added,

it doesn't taste overly buttery to me.

Remove it from the heat,

keep it on a warm place and there you have it.

A classic hollandaise sauce.

I need to shower, but hey the hollandaise is done.

And that's what matters!

Daniel got this avocado for me to put it

as a side of my eggs benedict but I'm gonna do

something special with it, so we're making

avocado hollandaise sauce.

Before anything, a little bit of water, your regular water.

A little bit of salt, so we're gonna mix

till it's nice and smooth.

There we go, I'm gonna put it in a little bowl

and there we have it, I'm gonna put it

into my hollandaise sauce but we're gonna add

little bit little because we wanna make sure

we have that consistency.

And there you have it, avocado hollandaise.

So now we're gonna keep this sauce room temperature,

and look at the consistency.

La crem de la crem [laughs].

Gonna give my arm a break now,

the hollandaise is resting and I'm here with the guanciale.

It just looks like little strips of,

like little mini bacon.

So I'm gonna put like maybe six strips on here.

And the oven is at like 350, 375.

Yeah, I'm just gonna pop this into the oven for

like 10, 15 and just watch it till it gets nice and crispy

and that should be about it for the guanciale.

I didn't need to say it like that but okay,

into the oven it goes.

Daniel, thank you for the English muffins,

the only thing that I can think when I get bread

is toast it and then make breadcrumbs.

Let's cut 'em in half.

You're gonna stick it in the oven, 350, for 10, 15 minutes.

The polenta is done, and it's firm now

so I'm gonna cut this into little circle shapes

almost as if it were an English muffin.

This feels like surgery.

Now we're gonna transfer all of these onto a plate.

Look at that, and they're firm,

and they're not English muffins but you know,

I bet they're gonna be even better.

All right so we have our English muffins,

they're nice and crispy,

so we're gonna make breadcrumbs with it.

And I'm not just gonna sprinkle it over the eggs benedict

if that's what you're thinking.

I think it's ready, beautiful.

We don't wanna make it too fine

because I wanna keep some crunchiness.

English muffins breadcrumbs.

And the guanciale I believe is done, wow.

That cooks really fast, look at that, very crispy.

So the guanciale is sitting,

my polenta is plated, so for better or worse,

things are starting to come together.

I feel like I can see the finish line.

We're so close [laughs].

I have the poached eggs, the English muffin breadcrumbs.

So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna fry poached eggs, yes.

The inspiration came from Scotch egg.

We're gonna grab one beautiful egg,

a little bit of flour, egg wash,

and then breadcrumbs.

Ta-da, poached eggs ready to be fried.

One way to make sure your oil is hot,

just get a little piece of your egg

and dump it in there, that's the noise that you want.

We have to make sure it stays like that,

soft like my heart [laughs].

There, when we're heating it, the other side, keep turning,

shut it off, so that's it, that was what, 20 seconds,

15 seconds, and it's still so soft from the inside

and there we have it, I nailed it, I nailed it!

I'm gonna try to multi-task here.

On one side I'm going to be sort of searing the polenta

and while that's going, I'm going to poach my eggs.

All right guys, so I have some Canadian bacon,

I'm just gonna get a nice caramelization

into both sides and then I have a little surprise.

My favorite trick in the world, something easy,

something that blow peoples minds.

I'm gonna crank this up to, just like medium heat,

I'm gonna add a little olive oil,

I'm gonna throw two of my polenta cakes on here

which honestly came out pretty nice,

they're way more savory than English

muffins and way bigger.

They're like little hockey pucks.

So I'm just you know, giving it a nice sear

on both sides and then the cheese.

So we're gonna use Monterey Jack.

I'm doing three just in case if I screw up once,

I have the other one.

You know you always have to have a plan B, always.

We're gonna let the cheese melt

and when it start to get a little bit brown to the sides,

that's when you can remove the cheese,

right now it's too soon.

To see if I can rise to the challenge of Chef Saul.

So Daniel, you should try to do this.

One hand.

A single handed egg crack.

Oh bam!

Well, that was the coolest thing I've ever done.

Poaching eggs, little nervous about, but it's okay.

Daniel, I don't know how much experience you have

poaching an egg but here's some tips for you.

Lower the heat, vinegar, salt.

And I'm gonna add a little bit of my white vinegar.

With a spatula, play with the water,

make like a little tornado and when that tornado

is happening just grab the eggs and dump it in there, gently

All right so it's got its little boil going

I'm gonna start this whirlpool

and I'm gonna slowly drop the egg in there.

It's cooking, I'm gonna leave it in there for maybe like

three, three and a half minutes and while that's going,

I'm going to see about these polentas.

Oh, yes!

I love it when a plan comes together [laughs].

Look at that.

So we have nice sear both sides,

had to make sure it was nice and dry, not oily.

Gonna put it on top of the cheese so it slicks.

And then, viola, see how you see what that was.

A nice Canadian bacon with some Monterey Jack cheese.

Look at this beauty.

I just wanna eat it like that.

The egg is looking really good, it's all holding together.

The tornado water actually like wraps the egg up in itself

and keeps it all together.

It kind of looks like a teardrop almost

and I'm literally just gonna put this into ice water

and stop any cooking so that the yolk stays jiggly on me.

And then while that is cooling down,

I'm going to take my polenta cakes off the heat,

it's a golden brown on both sides.

[angelic singing]

Things are looking up, let's plate this,

I'm ready, let's do it.

[light music]

It's plating time!

The time has finally come, I'm so ready to plate this.

The gorditas, we wanna cut it almost all the way,

you see the steam that comes out?

That's the steam of love,

and also they're really hot.

So first, I'm gonna take some of these chives,

I'm just gonna put them over the top.

Just a little bit for flare at the end.

Since I don't want the gorditas to move everywhere,

I'm gonna put some sauce on the bottom,

just a little dot, then we're gonna push the plate

like this just to make it look fancy.

I'm gonna put this one right here

and this one right in the back.

So the polenta cake, put that right in the center there,

gonna throw some of the arugula on there,

the guanciale which smells incredible.

It smells like kettle corn.

So I'm gonna put two on here because I think I've earned two

We wanna stuff it with our delicious fried cheese

with ham, our poached egg.

Now poached egg, and you're gonna slide this on top here.

And just in case if it needs a little bit more sauce.

So I'm gonna do a nice dollop of hollandaise here.

Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Just enough to make it look nice.

And this beautiful cilantro macho,

just a little bit over here, over here.

A little bit more of this truffle

because now I'm obsessed.

I understand the hype behind truffles whole heartedly.

This has added so much flavor that

I did not see coming at all and I'm super stoked about it

and top it off with some chives.

And this is my take on Daniel's dish,

I think he's gonna go nuts [laughs].

That is my take on Chef Saul's eggs benedict.

I don't think I've ever been more excited to bite

into anything in my life and I hope

that I did this justice for Chef Saul.

Can't wait to try this,

this actually looks amazing [laughs].

[light music]

Wow, it's done, it is made in front of me,

it's like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders

and one shoulder I can't even feel from the whisking.

[metal clanking]

Dinner time, brunch time.

I wanna eat this, now.

Chef Saul! Good to meet you, buddy!

Your recipe broke me.

I know, I know it.

I've never whisked for so long!

I know, it's easier to you know,

control the consistency of the sauce.

I want this guy to learn the hard way

which is the best way [laughs].

Bro and honestly, I wanna thank you Chef,

because I had never tried truffles prior to this.

Honestly, one of the most incredible things

I've probably put in my mouth.

It's insane, it adds so much flavor that I never knew about.

I think it's one of my favorite Italian ingredients to use

So I'm guessing my recipe wasn't

much of a challenge for ya?

It actually was, it was.

To me, the best food, it's simple food.

When I have a dish and I need to improve it

or make it better or make it different,

it's a big challenge because you don't wanna screw it up

a beautiful, amazing dish.

And I did come up with something pretty, pretty cool.

What?

So I pan fried the poached egg

with English muffin bread crumbs.

And then, instead of the English muffin,

I made a Mexican English muffin, AKA gordita.

Ha-ha-ha. Gordita, okay!

And then for the hollandaise sauce.

I used the avocado that you send me

and I made it in an avocado hollandaise sauce.

No way!

Chef, it looks incredible.

You wanna see yours?

Yes, please!

Oh nice.

You have a nice heat on the polenta, I can see, beautiful.

As long as you think I did okay

then I'm like you know what, it's a win today.

Honestly, it looks amazing.

Oh, thank you.

Want me to go first?

Yeah, of course.

Okay, all right.

I hope your egg yolk is nice and runny.

Oh don't worry, oh yes, oh yeah.

Mmm, this is incredible, Chef.

Give me a bite!

[laughs] Try yours, try yours.

Oh there we go.

I got it right again!

Oh! I'm gonna use it

with my hands 'cause it's already on my hand.

You gotta, you gotta!

Don't interrupt me please,

I don't wanna choke on myself, delicious!

I really, I cannot thank you enough

for introducing me to all these crazy new flavors,

I would have no idea.

Okay Daniel listen, I need to go back to work.

Chef yeah, and I gotta go back to eating this

until the plate is completely clean.

Thank you, Buddy!

Thank you so much!