It's 11:00 AM on a Tuesday. This is about the time of day that I get hungry and start trolling through food blogs and recipe sites. I just saw a post on my favorite food blog, 101 Cookbooks, about a dish with black rice and poached eggs. Now, something you should know about me is that I love poached eggs.
When I was a little girl, my Grandpa Butterworth taught me how to make a "6-Minute Egg." He brought a pot of water to a boil, and gently lowered 2 eggs down into it. He set the egg timer for 6 minutes, and pulled them out just when the time was up. He put one on a plate for me and one on a plate for him. While the egg was still hot, he gingerly carved it in his hands. With one chop he sliced right through the shell and cut the egg in half, then he scraped the bright orange treasure out of each half with a quick swirl of the knife. He cut it into little bite-sized pieces and sprinkled it with salt and pepper.
This was the best egg I had ever tasted in my life up to that point. Probably mostly because it was made with such love and attention by my Grandpa just for me, but there was more to it. The white part was fully cooked, and the yellow part was perfectly half solid and half liquid. You could tell that Grandpa had gotten very scientific about this process. He told me he had tried boiling eggs for 5 minutes or 7 minutes, but 6 was just perfect. And he was right. A simple egg, so delicious.
Before and since, I have tried lots of other kinds of eggs that I just did not prefer. You see, fried eggs are, well, fried, and that's not as good because of the oil. And, honestly, I don't like the way the texture of the whites can quickly get so tough when they are fried. It feels almost like eating plastic wrap. I don't like runny yolks, because, well, that's gross. But, you don't want it so well done that it's dry either. And there's no question, the white part absolutely must be fully cooked. Scrambled eggs are good. I especially like them with cheese, but if I'm going to eat just simply an egg, I have learned that there is only one improvement to be made on Grandpa Butterworth's 6-Minute Egg. And that is poaching.
You see, when you boil an egg it gives the perfect consistency, the only challenge then becomes how to get your boiling hot egg out of that boiling hot shell. There's the chance of burning your fingers, and even if you find a way to avoid that, there is then a chance you will get flecks of shell in your egg or, heaven forbid, that you will not get the complete egg out of the shell. Even with a spoon you don't get that perfect round end product. It comes out in jagged pieces. Yes, the only way to improve on Grandpa's 6-Minute Egg is to poach it. This eliminates the shell altogether, while still giving you that perfectly cooked consistency that I experience with Grandpa's egg.
Poaching eggs is not hard once you know how to do it, but as I've learned, there are lots of ways to screw it up. First, start with fresh eggs. The fresher they are, the better they hold together. Then, add just a splash of white vinegar to the water. It helps to coagulate the egg. The main trick is to be gentle. The water must be steaming hot, but must have no bubbles, or next to no bubbles. The bubbles will break up the egg and give you basically, egg drop soup, which is delicious, but not what we're looking for here. The water must be still, and gentle on the egg, like a sleeping baby you don't want to wake up. I usually bring the water to a boil, and then turn it down until there are no bubbles. Then, you must crack the egg into a cup or ramekin and then gently lower it into the water. I like to use a coffee mug, because the handle keeps your hand safely out of the boiling hot water. There should be no haphazard tossing the little embryo right into the pot. Be gentle. Entering the egg just along the side of the pot helps hold it together, too.
I have found that cooking the egg in the water for about 5 minutes gets the yolk half cooked, just like grandpa's egg. (No shell = less cooking time.) Actually, another nice thing about having no shell, is that you can actually pull the egg up out of the water with a slotted spoon and feel how done the yolk is. If it's hard, with no give, then you have fully hard boiled it. If it feels really squishy like a ziploc bag with water in it when you touch it, then the insides are really squishy too. If it has body, but still gives a little, it's perfect.
When the eggs are done, remove them from the water with a slotted spoon. Place them on a paper towel, or clean kitchen towel and gently pat their tops dry. Many chefs forget this step when I order poached eggs in restaurants, and it is awful. It creates a big pool of water on your plate. Even if they serve them in a ramekin, I end up having to use all my napkins to dry up the puddle underneath them. After that, some people cut off the angel-y bits that sometimes occur around the edges, but I never do.
Now you have a perfectly cooked egg, no burnt fingers, no shells in your yolks. I still like to slice it into bite-sized pieces and sprinkle it with salt and pepper just like Grandpa Butterworth did all those years ago. I think of him every time I eat it that way. Nowadays I usually have my eggs in Eggs Benedict or some other brunch-y dish, with a nice mimosa on the side.
Happy poaching!
Happy poaching!
