Quails Eggs with Hollandaise Canapes

If you read my Ottolenghi post you will have seen that I have not really had much time to write my blog lately. Now that my daughter is healthily, I am really enjoying writing again.

Last night we had some friends over for an early evening drink. I love serving canapés at this time and last night made one of my favourites, Quails Eggs with Hollandaise Sauce.

They are really easy to make, if the hollandaise scares you buy it ... if you try them to let me now how you get on ...

QUAILS EGGS WITH HOLLANDAISE CANAPES - Makes 24

Ingredients

1 x Rhams Mini Croustades (24 per pack), 24 Quails eggs, 6 Chives, 50g Hollandaise Sauce

Heat the oven to 180
Spread mini Croustades out on a baking tray
Break a quails egg into each of the croustades, I tend to use a knife or the sharp edge of a saucepan to do this
Place the baking tray with the eggs on it into the oven for 4-5 minutes, you want them to have just cooked with the yoke still slightly runny
While the eggs are cooking use a pair of scissors to finely chop up the chives and heat up your hollandaise
Remove the eggs from the oven and place on a plate. Blob on a 1/4 of a teaspoon of hollandaise sauce and sprinkle with chives ... serve while hot

Cooking notes

Breaking the quails eggs is a fairly fiddly job. I normally do it about ten minutes before my guests are due to arrive. Occasionally you get little bits of egg shell in the croustade. I find the best way to get these out is to dip the broken shell in and scoop them out.

As every oven is a slightly different temperature I recommend keeping an eye on the eggs while they are cooking. I find they take 4-5 minutes in my oven. If you over cook them and they are not runny don't worry they will still taste great. If after five minutes they are still transparent and undercooked then cook them for longer.

I use Nick Nairn's wonderfully quick recipe for my hollandaise (see below). If you do not have time to make it then buy it ... I would recommend buying fresh hollandaise from the fridge, rather than a long life jar, waitrose do a good one.

Hollandaise Sauce - Serves 4

2 egg yolks, 250g hot butter, juice 1 small lemon, salt and pepper

Melt your butter in a saucepan
Place boiling water in a glass bowl, to heat up the bowl
Put the egg yolks and 2 tablespoons of boiling water into a food processor with the cutting blade in it and blitz till fluffy, should take 30 seconds
Once the eggs are fluffy, take off the small removable lid on the funnle of the food processor and slowly pour the melted butter through the funnel while it is still running (take care that it does not spit). This should take about 15-20 seconds.
Once you have poured the butter through add in the lemon juice and whizz for a few more seconds till the sauce thickens.
Once thick pour out the water from the glass bowl, dry quickly and pour in the Hollandaise sauce
Season with salt and pepper, cover and put in a warm place until needed ... the sauce should keep like this for an hour.

Cooking notes

If you use a large lemon for this use half the juice otherwise it will be very citrusy.