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Poached Egg

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Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 1 egg white
  • 1 cup of water
  • Half of a cup of vinegar

Method
 

  1. PREP THE POT
    Fill a medium pot with water and add the vinegar. Resnick recommends the 1/4 cup of vinegar per 1-quarter of water ratio because “this helps the egg white coagulate into the nice, round shape you want." Add too much vinegar and the white will firm up so much that it will resemble a “bouncy ball.”
  2. SIMMER
    Bring the pot of water and vinegar to a boil and lower it to a simmer over low to medium. Resnick says that one of the biggest egg-poaching mistakes is not having the water at the right temperature. “It needs to be at a very low simmer. If the water is too hot, the friction caused by the movement of air through the water will cause the egg to fall apart.” To be precise, 160 to 180°F degrees is the ideal water temperature. If you don’t have a thermometer, bring the water to a boil and lower the temperature until a few bubbles stream up the side of the pot.
  3. CRACK THE EGGS
    Carefully crack an egg into a small bowl. Avoid putting more than one egg in the bowl at a time. No, you don’t want to crack the egg directly into the water. “If the yolk were to break in the transfer, the water would become cloudy and be difficult to work with going forward,” Resnick says. And, if a piece of shell falls into the water, it could get enveloped in the egg.
  4. COOK THE EGGS
    Use a slotted spoon to swirl the water at the point to create a vortex. Hold the small bowl with the egg close to the water’s surface and carefully guide the egg into the vortex. “The white should start to set and turn white,” Resnick says. Use the spoon to make sure the egg isn’t sticking to the bottom. Cook until the egg white feels firm through to the yolk. “If it feels like a water balloon, that means the white isn’t fully set,” he explains. Exactly how long to cook the egg can vary, depending on the water temperature, and knowing when it’s cooked is one of the trickiest parts of poaching an egg. The Incredible Egg recommends poaching eggs for three to five minutes.
  5. REMOVE THE EGGS
    Once the eggs are cooked, carefully remove them with the slotted spoon. Trim off any rough edges or tails, and serve. Resnick says, don’t worry too much if your eggs don’t come out looking pretty, as long as they’re cooked correctly. “You can always throw some extra hollandaise sauce over the top, and it’s going to taste good!”