Salmon Eggs Benedict

Today was a great day. I woke up early, biked over to my friend's house, then we ran 5 miles, and then I biked home and made brunch. I almost got hit on my way to my friend's house, but it was ok because she was eating a peach while she almost hit me, so that made everything - JUST PEACHY. But back to brunch.

What a brunch it was. This week's brunch inspiration was a ridiculous question we had on our last exam. Did you know that calcitonin comes from salmon? No? Well now I sure do! So of course, all of us were angry about this stupid trivial "trivia-like" question, so we've all been texting about salmon all weekend since. Which means I have been thinking about salmon all weekend long. And given that we are a million miles from any saltwater (or freshwater, for that matter because salmon are weird ass fish), fish does not enter our vocab very often. THAT's how pissed we were.

Now I have bagels, but salmon on bagels is SO easy to do. That's something I could make during the week. I can't have such a quick dish for a weekend meal, so I made eggs benedict...sort of.

Instead of an English muffin, I did a baguette, which I sliced on the diagonal in order to maximize surface area for the hollandaise. Underneath the poached egg, I put some smoked salmon, so there's the salmon!

Why a baguette instead of an English muffin? Well, I don't know a lot about French cuisine, but I know it centers on fat and oils and eggs and more fat. So with all the eggs and the fat going on with this dish, I figured a French baguette would feel right at home. English muffins are great and all, but I imagine the English are feeling a little out of place around the EU right now.

Then of course I added avocado and bacon because is any meal really complete without avocado and bacon? Scratch that, is any brunch complete without avocado and bacon?

This was probably the most delicious thing I've made in a while. You're probably thinking "of course it was delicious. There's bacon involved." And while that does have a really big impact on how delicious this ended up being, it was really the contrast in flavors between the hollandaise and the salmon that made the dish. The salmon had that nice smooth slightly salty taste, which was a stark contrast to the lemony-butter goodness that is hollandaise. In comparison to what I made last week (poached egg stuffed avocado wrapped in bacon), this was much simpler, and I would argue more delicious.

The good:
FAT. So much fat. I had just gotten back from my run and bike ride, and so naturally I was starving, but this kept m full for hours. It has the oh-so-feared sat fats with the bacon, hollandaise, and eggs, but let's not forget about those amazing fish oils and avocado oils! Life is about balance, and brunch imitates life.
Clean up was also fantastic. I used a sauce pan to poach the eggs, and a frying pan for the hollandaise, and that's it. Two things to wash and everything else is dishwasher safe? Not bad.

The bad:
The price. Man salmon, it's a good thing you're delicious, or else you would NOT be used. But like I said before, I already have bagels and cream cheese, which means that I can have salmon on my bagels for the rest of the week.

The ugly:
The bacon and the smoked salmon. Smoked meats and the crazy stuff they do to bacon increases risks for all kinds of cancer. And while I thought I was being all Californian with my avocado and salmon, I might have been more Ca like Cancer, not California.

Areas of improvement:
I think a little bit of spice would be appreciated. Or sweet. Just a different flavor than the overall savoriness of this dish. So maybe a fruit salad would be better next time, or add some red pepper flakes to the hollandaise.