10. Poached Eggs

All my hero chefs claim that mastering cooking is mastering cooking eggs.  Folklore tells us that scientific studies are constantly back and forth about eggs and whether or not they're healthy.  This was true a few decades ago.  However, aside from the occasional salmonella recall, the verdict seems to be that eggs are not bad for you.  In fact studies are showing that eating eggs contributes to weight loss and are good for people with diabetes.  This is great news to me because I love eggs and just about in every form they're cooked, which seems to be countless ways.  

While there is some risk of salmonella with eggs, there are some precautions you should take.  One is to wash your hands immediately after handling raw eggs.  Eating raw or soft cooked eggs with a runny yolk may have some more risk than hard cooked eggs or scrambled.  I love soft cooked eggs, so I hazard a bit of a risk, but aside from risking possible salmonella, the soft cooked eggs are quite healthy.  

As another precaution try cracking your eggs on a flat surface, like a clean plate, instead of on the edge of a pan or bowl.  The less of the outer shell you crack into the egg, the better and there's less risk of breaking the yolks.  Breaking the yolk is the last thing you want to do when making soft cooked eggs so really focus on your egg breaking technique, each break is practice, and don't half-ass it.  I cook eggs all the time and still run into some trouble, they're just so delicate.  So, when I do make a successful egg dish, I feel quite accomplished.   
  
The first time I had a poached egg was just a couple of years ago at Uncle John's Pancake House in Toledo.  My mom never cooked them for me when I was a kid and for whatever other reasons they just didn't arrive on my plate.  I heard of them, but I had no idea what they were or even what they looked like. But when I tried them, I immediately fell in love with them.

Apparently poaching comes from the French word for pocket, which is kind of what happens when you cook the egg and the white becomes a pocket around the yolk.   Some recipes call for a precise amount of water in a specific sized pan.  Well, I've found that you probably want three to four inches of water to work.  Any deeper than that and you may have problems.  I recommend a larger pan for more eggs.  This is just to keep the whites from combining.

This sauce pan, filled to just over half way, works pretty good for me for two eggs.  I haven't tried more than two at a time yet.

Place the water on a high heat.  When bubbles begin to break the surface add 1 teaspoon of vinegar and a teaspoon of kosher salt.  Regular-ass white vinegar is the only kind I've ever used so, I don't know if other kinds of vinegar work the same or not.  My books don't mention it.  Maybe it's common knowledge and I'm just ignorant of it or something.  The hell if I know.

Crack your eggs into small bowls, this is so you can pour the eggs into the pan as close to the surface of the water as possible.  I've used small bowls and even saucers before, but these neat little Glad storage containers work very nicely.

 

Drop the eggs into the water as close to the surface as possible, one at a time.  The vinegar is supposed to keep the egg white from going everywhere, but I probably need more work on this part because they usually look like the photo above.  I tweak them a little with my slotted spoon just to keep them from combining, but you don't want to mess around with them too long or the yok will harden and you don't want that.  When they look like this remove from the heat, put a lid on the pan, and wait three minutes.

When the three minutes are up, gently remove the eggs, one at a time from the water with a slotted spoon and try to drain as much water as possible.  I put them on toasted English muffins, but they can go on toast and are recommended for salads, though I never tried them that way.  I tried them over Ramen noodles once.

I use Thomas' Light Multi-Grain English Muffins because Mens' Health Magazine and the Eat This, Not That! people have rated them the healthiest breakfast bread.

I break open both yolks and spread it over the egg and muffin, then sprinkle some kosher salt and fresh ground pepper over it and enjoy!

My inspirational hero for this entry is The Mighty Stephen Hawking.  He is an innovator of theoretical physics and cosmology, most noted is his work in quantum gravity and black holes.  He is also a popularizer of science.  One of his many books, A Brief History of Time, is best known world wide for putting modern cosmology in layman's terms.  He's published several other books, appeared in several documentary movies, and created and appeared in television shows about the science of the universe.  He's also appeared on shows like Star Trek: The Generation, The Simpsons, and Futurama, because the writers of these shows are huge fans of Hawking.  Most of this he achieved while suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for forty-seven years.  This disease has slowly debilitated his physical body and he became known for an electronic synthesizer he uses to speak.  He has used a small handpiece to operate his synthesizer, but no longer can, so he uses a device that follows his eye movements.  At this point he's almost completely paralyzed, but has a new groundbreaking cosmology book about to be released called The Grand Design.