Make Restaurant-Worthy Poached Eggs With This Spanish-Style Addition

A serving of tender, gooey poached eggs makes a quick and tasty breakfast that doesn't even need oil or butter. However, if you feel like turning it into a fancier meal that could be served at a restaurant, the secret is to jazz up your huevos with inviting extras, like herbs, creamy Hollandaise, or fresh avocado. One Spanish-style addition that's also perfect for the job is serrano ham. Savory with a slight note of nuttiness, this salt-cured protein complements the butteriness of a softly-set yolk and gives the final dish a meatier texture.

Serrano ham is made from white pig breeds and is dry-cured for 16-18 months (unlike the pricier Iberico, which is derived from the black Iberian pig and is cured for a minimum of 24 months). As the pigs are fed with grain, the final product has a mild but savory flavor, which makes it incredible for pairing with eggs. Because serrano ham is cured, it is safe to eat without cooking, and it is often shaved into paper-thin slices and served in Spanish tapas, in a similar way to Italian prosciutto on charcuterie boards. This means you can sub it for the Canadian bacon on a serving of Eggs Benedict without any additional cooking and produce a gourmet-style dish that has more of a complex, savory flavor. However, in this recipe for poached eggs with cheddar-chive grits and crispy ham, the serrano ham is fried until the oil stops bubbling, which crisps it up so it can provide a bacon-like textural contrast against the smooth consistency of the poached eggs.

As serrano ham is super-thin, it's perfect for draping over (versus placing underneath) poached eggs too, which gives the dish a classy aesthetic (a regular slice of ham is much thicker and doesn't have the same delicate quality, upmarket feel, or salty character). Once you've situated the serrano, all you need to do is scatter over a few finely chopped chives and dig in, allowing the golden yolk to act as the sauce. For the ultimate restaurant-worthy batch of poached eggs, you could top it with Hollandaise or serve it with a classic garlic aioli for a creamier finish — the combo of the room temperature sauce and piping hot poached eggs also warms up the marbled fat in the Serrano slightly, helping to release its aroma. 

That said, if you prefer the mouthfeel of crispier Serrano ham, you could wrap it around some asparagus and sear it on all sides in a hot pan with a pat of butter before serving it with poached eggs and toasted bread. This move produces an elegant meal that combines the fresh beauty of the veggies with the concentrated salty crispiness of the serrano and the velvety eggs for a dish perfect for serving at a bougie homemade brunch.