Eggsellent

In all my years of cooking I have never been able to make a decent poached egg. I have tried a number of different techniques. I have added vinegar to the water and swirled the water around before adding the egg. I have tried using rapidly boiling water and just about boiling water. All of there methods produced a pretty average poached egg that I was not very impressed with.

I always wanted to be able to poach an egg like they do in café’s and restaurants. I wanted to produce a nice little compact egg with a lovely runny yolk. Well I am here to tell you that I have at last figured it out. Recently I have come across a few articles about poaching the perfect egg and I have put together a couple of techniques to produce what I consider a great poached egg.

In a frying pan (as opposed to a sauce pan which I used to use) bring some water to the boil. Then turn the heat down slightly so that there are small bubbles rather than large rapidly boiling bubbles. Crack your egg into a cup. Then lower the side of the cup into the water and let the egg slip out of the cup very slowly. Leave the egg to poach for 4 minutes. During this time I spooned some of the boiling water over the egg to make sure the yolk cooked properly. Remove the egg using a fish slice (better than a slotted spoon as it prevents the water from pooling on the egg. Allow the water to drain for a couple of seconds and then you are good to go.

I had a whole weekend of poached eggs and they were all excellent. There is nothing better than cutting the yolk open and having it pour all over your toast. A little bit of rock salt to taste and your talking about a near perfect breakfast. I am a happy poacher now.