I’m not sorry about the pun!
This weekend I made POACHED EGGS. This is important because a) I haven’t attempted them since I was an apprentice a good 7 years ago, and b) up until a few weeks ago, I haven’t eaten runny eggs for a very, very long time. I’m talking over twenty years.
It all started when I was making a salad and I didn’t quite boil an egg for long enough, so it was still a bit runny inside. But, I ate it; and to my amazement there was no upset stomach, nor overwhelming “eggy” taste that usually turns me off! Then there were no holds barred! The next day there were soft boiled eggs, mushrooms, bacon and spinach for breakfast. A week later there were fried eggs, sunny side up (is there a better term for fried eggs not flipped? I don’t particularly like that phrase). Then, this weekend just past I attempted the poached eggs. I failed at my first two, the recipe I was using as a reference on Taste.com.au suggested to crack the eggs onto a plate first but I found that it completely destroyed the egg white as it entered the water. It could have been the eggs that I was using (it recommends to use the freshest eggs that you can) but I found cracking the eggs into rapid simmering water helped the egg whites to set better.
So, here’s what I did:
Bring a deep frypan full of water to a fast simmer.
Add a pinch of sea salt flakes and two teaspoons of lemon juice.
Slowly and carefully crack your eggs straight into the water. I did two at a time.
Simmer for 3-4 minutes.
Remove eggs from the water with a slotted spoon, hold over a sink or other surface to drain slightly.
Serve with hot buttered toast (Rye! It’s good!) and bacon. Enjoy!
See, you don’t need a Sunbeam Eggo after all!
Bacon and hollandaise sauce. *crosses arms*
A well-poached egg with good quality bread doesn’t need hollandaise.
Nice work Rodski! More foodhackery please!
man how can you not like the phrase ’sunny side up’!? congratulations on all the eggs though!
PS http://palacefoods.blogspot.com
Hey.. I was just thinking about this because we’ve just got into poaching eggs too.
I started off with the vinegar method because Stephanie says too.. but the ACID.. ugh, stink all through the kitchen..
I was chatting to my Dad later, who happens to be a poached egg connisuier and he said as long as the whites are tight, you don’t need the vinegar. This is the origin of the cracking it onto a plate first.. so you can see if the whites “stand up”. If not, the egg is old and will be crap anyway.
Of course, all our whites stand up, given our eggs are only 3-4 days old when we eat them most times :D