Poaching eggs is not easy. You may waste a lot of eggs before you get the hang of it but nevertheless no self respecting chef would use an egg poacher to poach an egg and after a bit of practice you will manage to do it. You get much softer eggs which taste great. They look the real deal too rather than a standard give-away shape. Once you master the technique, you’ll never have to think about buying an egg poacher again.
Poaching an egg simply means cooking it gently in boiling water until the white solidifies. You add water to the pan, bring it to the boil, drop in your egg and let it cook until the white is white rather than clear before removing it from the water with a slotted spoon.
The thing is there are a few tricks to make the job easier, and if you don’t know about these you’ll have a much harder time getting perfect poached eggs.
1. Never Let the Water Boil
Always get the water to simmering point and keep it on simmer while the egg is cooking. If the water starts bubbling away, the movement of the water breaks up the white and causes your poached egg to get strands of white all over the pan. You will lose half the egg and it will look a mess.
2. Add a few drops of vinegar
Adding a few drops of white wine or other mild vinegar to the cooking water helps the white to set, but does not give the egg a vinegary flavor.
Fusionbrands Poach Pods - silicone egg poacher (Click Image for Details)
3. Swirl the water Before Adding the Egg
If you create a swirl in the water before lowering the egg into the center, it will help the poached egg keep its shape. Only do this if you are cooking one egg at a time. (Never cook more than two at once anyway)
4. Lower don’t Drop the Egg
Gently lower the egg into the water rather than dropping it from a height. The less the egg and water are disturbed the better.
5. Don’t Poach too Long
Cook only for a few minutes, varying the time depending on how soft you want the yolk to be. Three minutes is about right for medium eggs.
6. Keep the Water Shallow
Add just one and a half inches to the pan and don’t try cooking your eggs in a pan full of water. You can spoon a little water over the top the eggs once they start to set to help the top to cook.
7. Use very Fresh Eggs
For some reason eggs which are not fresh do not work so well.
8. Blot up the Water
Remove the egg with a slotted spoon and rest the spoon and egg on a few layers of kitchen paper for a few minutes to soak up excess water.
What to Do If You Still Don’t Manage to Create Great Poached Eggs?
Crack your egg into a tea cup and lower it into the water from the cup. You can even wait until the egg starts to set a little before gently tipping it into the water. Some have even had luck allowing the boiling water to enter the cup to cook the egg a little before tipping out the egg.
And if All Else Fails…
Silicone egg poaching cups are the ultimate cheat device. You crack an egg into each of the poached egg cups having lightly buttered the surface and then float them on the boiling water until they are done. With these there is no hot egg poacher inserts to deal with as silicone stays cool to the touch and it also does not stick so the eggs come out without any mess. If you can cook as many eggs at one time as you have silicone egg cups. And you can also use them to bake other items such as muffins so they are a great buy and much cheaper than normal egg poachers whether you are talking about a manual or electric egg poacher. See a selection of silicone egg poachers here in all kinds of beautiful colors and shapes.