The Art of the Poached Egg

Sunday mornings equal fry ups; the typically British breakfast.  Not for myself I might add; I can't seem to stomach all that grease so early in a morning but pancakes and left over puddings, that's more my thing.  Nevertheless, almost every weekend I find myself making bacon and eggs at least once for my other half.

But here's the question....how do you like your eggs in a morning?  With a kiss? Scrambled? Fried? Or are you really posh and go for poached?

Well typically my boyfriend opts for poached which sadly is a skill that has eluded me for a while, to the point where my sister and boyfriend launched a joint project to teach me how to poach an egg.  I'm not talking about using a poacher, I mean in the pan of water like a chef.  They make it look so easy on the tv...in it goes, a few bubbles and out it pops this beautiful round symmetrical globe of white with a golden centre like the sun breaking through a cloud and on to the toast and they always take a knife and show you just how runny that centre is don't they?

Well my past attempts have been completely dismal; quite often I would find that my yolk would become completely detached from the white in the pan and not come together at all and leave a big tangled web of white strings and completely overcooked centre.  Other times I have managed to burst my yolk contaminating my pan and having the throw the whole lot away and other times completely squashing the whole thing before it gets to the table so it just looks a mess!

But thanks to the dedicated family I have around me, I can finally produce a half decent poached egg.  My sister started first with a demo and concluded (after my failed attempt) that I throw the egg in too high, so for Christmas I found some silicone egg poachers, which resemble half a broken egg shell.  I tried these and thought I was doing well until I utterly obliterated the eggs trying to get them out of the things.  Next my Grandma joined in and bought me some poaching pockets, sort of like a plastic bag that you poach the egg inside, yet I still felt like I was cheating.

Finally, this Christmas just gone, I got James Martin's Master Class and so come Boxing Day, it was time to try again.  Here's how I did it:

• Put a pan of water on to get a rolling boil.
• Meanwhile crack your egg into a ramekin dish.
• Add a tablespoon of white wine vinegar to the water.
• Take a whisk in one hand and the ramekin in the other and whisk the water until you create a whirlpool then holding the ramekin just above the surface of the water quickly pull out the whisk and tip in the egg into the centre of the whirlpool then leave for a minute and a half.

Now, this is where James and I start to veer apart in our methods, he says, keep in for two then straight out and into some iced water to stop the cooking process and repeat with all the rest of your eggs then put them back into boiling water to reheat then on to the plate.  Personally, I don' think this is necessary if you are doing just a couple of eggs; if I was making poached eggs for a few people, then I would continue with his method, but what I do is take the eggs out with a slotted spoon after a minute and a half then straight on to kitchen paper to drain for a few seconds. 

(At this point, if you want to be really cheffy and get a perfect egg, take a pair of scissors and cut off the straggly bits.)

Now for the next tricky part - transportation of the egg to the plate. In the past, I have tried picking the egg up again with the slotted spoon and often breaking the yolk of my poor excuse for a poached egg but I have found the secret is the kitchen paper. Transfer the egg onto your toast, smoked salmon or bacon by carrying it on the kitchen paper to the plate then carefully rolling it off the paper, thereby reducing the chance of breaking the yolk. Quick grate of pepper on the top then run like mad to the table to show everyone your amazing skills!! Only joking, once you have got to the pepper stage you are home and dry. 

The only problem is doing it for multiple people!! My answer to that is they can have scrambled! Poached eggs to me are the elegant option; definitely the posh option anyway and something of a treat.  Keep it for your favourite people or special times of the year. trust me the only reason I offer poached at the moment is because I am trying to master the skill, but I think I am almost there; a successful team effort!