I was recently asked by Challenge Dairy to come up with a creation using one of their butters.  The last time they gave me this challenge, I dreampt up Chipotle Pork Quichelettes—mini quiches featuring a special no-fail crust where butter is the star.  So when Challenge Dairy challenged me to a round 2, I quickly said yes—obviously good things happen when their butter is around.  With a coupon that they sent me in the mail, I went to the grocery store and picked up a box of Challenge Dairy European Butter (my favorite out of their products), and then let it sit in my refrigerator for a few days trying to figure out what to do with it.

Then I saw a tweet about April 16th being National Eggs Benedict Day.  I bet you know what happened next . . . Eggs Benedict means hollandaise sauce, and hollandaise sauce means . . . BUTTER!  Classic eggs Benedict consists of half of an English muffin, topped with a slice of ham or Canadian bacon, a poached egg, and hollandaise sauce.  I decided to make a version with a Japanese twist.    Instead of an English muffin, I made a yaki-onigiri base—a rice ball that is lightly grilled.

Instead of a slice of ham or Canadian bacon, I used sauteed slices of fresh shiitake mushrooms.

For the poached egg, I switched out the chicken egg and went with a poached quail egg.

And finally the hollandaise sauce.  I didn’t do much to this sauce, except for using lime juice instead of lemon juice.  I must admit that I made my hollandaise in the blender.  In my defense, I did it because Julia Child said I could.  Check pages 79 and 81 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, and you will find the words: “It is extremely easy and almost fool proof to make in the electric blender . . . [and] as the technique is well within the capabilities of an 8-year old child, it has much to recommend it.”  For a busy mother of two young children, those are glorious words to read.  Good butter is essential to a delicious hollandaise sauce.  With butter being one of the main ingredients, the sauce is highly affected by the flavor of the butter that you use.  I like Challenge Dairy’s European Butter because it is rich and creamy with great flavor.

The whole creation was finished off with a sprinkling of fresh chives.  Because I used poached quail eggs, this version of eggs Benedict makes mini servings (Challenge Butter must also induce miniature-itis).  I’ve affectionately named them Quail Eggs Benedict Pagodas, because they’re stacked a bit higher than traditional eggs Benedict, like little edible pagodas.

Yaki-onigiri aren’t too difficult.  First you start out by making the onigiri–the rice ball.  I’ve posted a tutorial on how to do this, but here’s a quick refresher: I grab a measuring cup, some sturdy plastic wrap, a clean spray bottle filled with water, and some salt.  I line the measuring cup with a large square of the plastic wrap, spray the plastic wrap lightly with water, and then sprinkle it with salt.

Then I place about 2 tablespoons of freshly steamed Japanese rice in to the measuring cup,

then gather the sides of the plastic wrap up around the rice,

and begin applying firm, but gentle pressure to form the rice into a cohesive ball.  For this dish, I flatted the balls slightly so that it would be easy to  layer the ingredients on top of them.

I then heated a bit of oil in a frying pan and lightly browned the rice balls on both sides.

Poaching the quail eggs is quick—just remember to crack them carefully into the boiling water.  It’s much easier to puncture the yolk when the egg is so small!

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Don’t forget to enter my Jamie Oliver Giveaway and join the Food Revolution!  The contest will close tonight and the winner will be announced tomorrow.  See this post for details.

Tagged as: butter, chives, egg yolks, fusion, Japanese rice, lime juice, onigiri, quail eggs, sesame oil, shiitake mushrooms, vegetable oil, vegetarian