Poached Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the eggs
Break each egg into a saucer.
Poach
Slip the egg into boiling water and cover.
Move to a cooler part of the fire and cook for 5 minutes or until the white is firm and a film has formed over the yolk.
Finish and serve
Remove with a skimmer, drain, and trim off the rough edges.
Serve on slices of toast and season to taste.
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 into a firm shell around the soft yolk as they cook in water.
- Slices of toast
- Provide a crisp, absorbent base that holds the poached egg.
The step that matters
Keeping the water at a gentle simmer after adding the egg. Boiling water tears the whites apart, while a gentle heat sets the white evenly around the yolk. Moving the pan to a cooler part of the fire helps hold that gentle heat.
“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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