To Poach Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the water
Pour boiling water through a clean cloth into a broad stew pan to remove impurities.
Set the pan with the strained water over hot coals and bring to a boil.
Poach the eggs
Break each egg into a saucer, then slip the eggs into the boiling water one by one.
Let the pan sit until the egg whites are set, then return it to the heat.
Once the water boils again, the eggs are done.
Carefully remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and trim any ragged edges from the whites.
Serve
Place thin slices of buttered toast in a dish and top each slice with a poached egg.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Egg whites set in the hot water, forming the cooked body of each poached egg.
- Buttered toast
- Provides a crisp, rich base that carries the soft egg and soaks up its yolk.
The step that matters
Letting the whites set before returning the pan to heat. Egg white proteins coagulate as they heat, so the whites need time to firm around the yolk. Returning the pan to heat too early, or letting the water boil hard, can tear the whites and scatter them through the water.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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