5 Tips to poach eggs

For something so simple, It's actually not the easiest thing to do and it is common for people and even chefs to fail at this. So why do so many people fail at this? It is generally due to a lack of timing, experience or knowledge of cookery, eggs are not the simplest of products to work with and can be tricky without the proper knowledge and experience but with a bit of practice you can become a master egg cooker in no time. So I'm giving you some of my tips to become a master of poaching eggs!

1. Using a timer:

It's a pretty simple thing to remember, but over my course of working in a lot of restaurants and cafe's, It's something I see time and time again (no pun intended) where people forget to most crucial part of getting it perfect everytime.

Can you count to 3 minutes accurately every time? If you can, then a timer isn't necessary but if like the other 99.9% of us you can't then it is an absolute must. If you like your eggs soft poached get your pot on a rolling boil and set your timer to around 3 minutes, add an additional minute for extra degree's of doneness (Eg. 4mins for medium 5 minutes for hard)

2. Crack them individually:

a) Don't overfill your pot with eggs, the bigger the pot the better as it allows more room for the eggs to move and avoids them hitting each other and bursting. b) Crack them into a ramekin or kitchen spoons before putting them in the pot. There is nothing worse than adding a rotten or spoiled eggs to a pot with all your other eggs and ruining all of them. Crack it first, check it's good enough quality and then add it to your pot.

3. Temperature of your water:

So there's a lot of different information online and even in cookbooks in regards to this subject, cooking is a science so there is 2 ways to explain this and it really depends on your cooking ability. The yolk and the "white" of the egg both cook at different temperatures the yolk cooks between 60C - 70C, the white's however will cook between 60C - 80C. This is where it can get confusing as the egg can be cooked at a minimum of 60C but this process will take 50 - 60 minutes, the texture of the cooked egg is also different to that of a poached egg it is softer and has a slightly different flavour profile. This can be fun to test out if you have a thermometer and are confident in your ability to poach eggs, however for the mediocre to average cook your best method is a rolling boil (Approx 100C) and timing it to your liking.

4. Stirring the water:

Another common thing I see with poaching recipes is to advise swirling the water in a whirlpool fashion before adding your cracked eggs into the pot. If you need to do this when poaching it generally means your water isn't hot enough, and you can run into problems. I find personally the eggs break up when doing this and don't hold their shape properly. The eggs inner & outer membrane keeps it in tact we don't want to disturb that bond, so let the water do It's thing and utilise the bubbles to keep your egg moving around while cooking rather than doing it yourself.

5. Using fresh and quality ingredients:

Do you ever find that when cracking eggs you get shells in them and they can be quite watery? You are using old or lower quality eggs. As the egg ages it starts to decay, membranes, yolk & egg white all start to lose quality after it's laid and will lose their structure. The result is watery eggs, shells that get stuck to the membranes or the egg yolk splitting when you crack it. Using better quality eggs or fresher eggs will make your job so much easier, quality products are always more forgiving. 

Did you find these tips helpful? If you are still struggling you can always come down to Nate's to get your daily dose of perfectly poached eggs