Poaching an Egg

Poaching eggs are one of my favourite things to eat for breakfast. Everybody loves their poached eggs cooked differently, soft, medium and hard poached eggs, which all comes down to timing.

Poached eggs need to be cooked in a water bath that is at roughly 75c.

Break the eggs into a couple of small containers, this is to make sure they are ok before dropping into the water.

Bring the water and vinegar to boil, then turn down to a simmer or pull the pan off to the side of the flame to control the heat and rotate the water on one side. Stir the water and slowly pour your eggs into the circling water. Keep the water moving by gently stirring.

Gently simmer the eggs in the water:

Soft poached Runny yolk: Simmer for 2-3 minutes

Medium poached slightly set yolk: Simmer for 4 minutes

Hard poached fairly set yolk: Simmer for 5-6 minutes

Depending how well you want your eggs cooked, cooked them for the required time.

Using a perforated spoon to remove your poached eggs gently, place poached eggs onto some paper towel to drain excess water and serve on some toasted with preferred garnish.

Tips and Hints

Always crack the egg into a bowl before placing into the simmering water, just encase your egg is off.

If you don’t like the excess watery part of the egg white that foams and boils around your eggs while poaching, then you can strain the eggs before poaching in a smaller strainer to remove the excess watery egg white liquid that falls away when you drop the eggs into the water.

Always use refrigerated eggs and if you can always buy refrigerated eggs form the supermarket, because eggs age 4 times faster when they are not refrigerated.

Do not over boil your egg or it will cook to fast and probably fall apart

Always control the temperature when poaching an egg.

If you poach an egg and it doesn’t work, then there is a very good chance that it could be the quality of the eggs you are buying or the season you are buying them in. Chickens during summer drink excess water which affects the albumen(egg white) viscosity of an egg its generally really loose and not great for poaching, even the seasoned professionals such as myself can have a bad egg day.. hahaha