Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

1. Poached

Eggs are one of the most fickle food staples to cook.  Poach em, fry em, scramble em, frittata them, omelette them, there are as many ways to prepare the gooey gobs as there are tastes and time.  Maybe that's what makes them, also, one of the most common that cooks enjoy to challenge themselves.  This past week alone I have tried to poach, to pistou, and to scramble.  As for poaching, I have made

Mediterranean Pistou Eggs

many mistakes. The most common have been either to plop the eggs into too deep a basin of water, only to see the egg whites loosen and spread around the pan like lost galaxies. In this case,  you end up with a still in tact yolk, but the rest is soupy water.  The other mistake is to plop from too far away above the boiling water (hopefully some vinegar added). Here, again, the whites have a tendency to split and become nothing more than gooey water.  I finally recounted all of my past mistakes and found a technique that tends to offer, bubbling up to the surface, a whole poached egg, clean on the

surface, hot all the way through, but a yoke that isn't hardened but liquid.  The first key is to use a shallow pan, one that might offer sides at least 2-3 inches high, so not a sauté pan, but more of high rimmed sauce pan.  What is important is that the boiling doesn't dissipate once the eggs are plopped. The shallower the pan, the closer all the water stays to the heat source and the boiling stays continuous on the eggs, shaping them and keeping the whites in tact.  Many cooks have written that at least a tablespoon of vinegar should also be added to the water, expediting the boiling process.  A pinch of salt, in the case of poaching, will obviously add seasoning, so this can be adjusted according to taste.  Maybe the most important new technique, however, is something that helps before the

plopping even occurs -- go ahead and crack your eggs into a fine mesh colander in the sink before they head to the pan. Excess whites that might have separated anyway seeps through the colander and the egg that is left is firm and in tact.  Slip these eggs into a measuring glass with a handle and then use this to very gently pour into the pan of boiling water.  At this point, you finally have a technique that just about ensures success: shallow boiling water and an egg that is fairly tight.  From here, it's mostly about watching and plucking at the point that you want the egg to be done; the earlier the runnier; the later, the harder the yoke will become.  Placing these perfectly warmed orbs onto toast points is a very simple breakfast or lunch option. Most importantly, it no longer has to be an experiment every time.