The Perfect Poached Egg
Poached eggs are without doubt one of the great ways to eat eggs – but no one makes them because unless you do them in one of those little metal moulds suspended in boiling water (which is completely cheating by the way) they fall apart in the water and end up as a stringy mess. UNTIL NOW!
In the first part of our ongoing series 101 Things to do with an Egg, we tell you how to poach an egg.
The first and most important thing you need to ensure before you poach an egg is get fresh eggs. Fresh eggs stay together much better when you pour them in the water. If you break an egg on a plate and the raw egg white holds together and doesn’t spread across the plate, then the egg is fresh and perfect for poaching. If it does spread thinly across the plate then the egg is older, and while pretty ropey for poaching, is great for baking.(But we’ll come to that later).
So now you have your fresh egg – pour it from your plate (if you bothered with that bit) or break it into an espresso cup. Then add a slug of vinegar to a pan of water and bring it to the boil. (The vinegar helps the egg hold together. ) Once your water is boiling, turn off the heat, at the same time as whisking the water to create a vortex. Slip the edge of the espresso cup into the water and tip out the egg into the middle of the vortex. (You turned the heat off so as not to burn your hand, and you don’t need to keep heating the water anymore anyway.)
Now you can just cook the egg in this water, but what if you’re making poached eggs for loads of people for a big family breakfast. Well in that case have a bowl of cold water standing by. After a minute the egg should just about hold together. You can now take it out of the vinegary water and put it in a bowl of cold water, which will stop it cooking. (You can at this point cut off any stringy unsightly bits if you want – but there shouldn’t be many of them).
Repeat the process above for as many eggs as you need, heating the water to boiling between each egg. Once you have part cooked all your eggs, throw away the water with the vinegar in, and put on a pan of salted water and bring that to the boil. Place your part cooked eggs in that water (You can put them all in together), and cook for a further 2 minutes.
Serve on a big thick bit of hot buttered toast. They should be firm on the outside, with a lovely runny yolk.
