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Poached Eggs

Poached eggs are eggs gently cooked in scalding salted water until whites set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Poached Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Poach

  1. Fill a shallow pan with salted water and heat until scalding hot.

  2. Break each egg into a cup and gently slip it into the hot water.

  3. Cook until the egg whites are fully set.

  4. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon.

Serve

  1. Serve with or without buttered toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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 hot water while the yolks stay soft, forming the dish's main structure.

The step that matters

Cook until the egg whites are fully set. Egg white proteins coagulate between roughly 60 and 85 °C, so the whites firm while the yolk stays liquid. Water kept just below a simmer and a gentle slip into the water help the whites hold together rather than scatter.

“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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