Poaching Eggs! A Success Story

Earlier today, I posted about Gordon Ramsay's amazing and seemingly magical secret for how to make the perfect poached egg. All day, that's all I could think about. Even as my work day dragged longer and longer, all I could think of was, "I can't wait to go buy some eggs, and poach them!!" I guess we all have different ways of getting through the day.

But finally, my moment came. I was finally home, armed with a fresh carton of extra large, Grade AA "Farm Fresh" eggs. Were they actually farm fresh? Probably not. But that was the best I could do with Trader Joe's.

First things first, I cracked two eggs into little cups, so that I could easily pour them (one at a time, of course) into my whirlpool of simmering water. I couldn't help but arrange my arsenal into a dour =/ face, to mirror the trepidation I was feeling. I spent so long today thinking about poaching an egg, that if I failed in my task, my spirit would be forever crushed.

At this point, I wondered what size pot I needed. I ended up choosing a reasonably sized 3 qt. saucepan. (Afterward, I tried a 2 qt. saucepan, with comical results, but more on that later.) Just like McGee suggested, I brought the water to a rolling boil, then dropped the heat down so the water was just simmering. Then, I just started stirring the water like a madman, simultaneously terrified that I was going to splash boiling water all over myself.

What I noticed with the 3 qt. saucepan was that even if you stir the pot like crazy (I was using the same whipping motion I'd normally use on a large bowl of eggs), the whirlpool dies down really fast. Like maybe five seconds after you stop stirring, it evens out. Still, I had to try it. I got the water churning once again, as fast as I could, and the second I pulled my whisk out of the water, I slipped the egg into the eye of the whirlpool. Then I waited.

At this point, my saucepan did not look pretty. Here's what the inside of the pot looked like. I was pretty pessimistic about the outcome. But Ramsay speaks from experience, and once my three minutes of cooking were up, I reached into the water with a slotted spoon, and pulled out... an amazingly beautiful, egg-shaped poached egg. And just like he said, it looked like a smooth lump of mozzarella. I threw it into cold water immediately, and noticed that all of the raggedy scraps fall right off the egg, leaving a much smoother exterior.


And there it was! I was so proud of myself, I IMed a friend to tell him I poached an egg, and the response on the other end must have been "..." But look how good it looks! Granted... I may have let my "three minutes" turn into "four minutes" out of paranoia, so the yolk wasn't as runny as I would've liked, but I couldn't have been happier with my result.

But what happens when you use a smaller saucepan?

Ah... yeah. About that. So while I was anxiously watching the egg poach in the 3 qt., I started worrying that the pot was too big. I thought maybe if I used a smaller saucepan, the whirlpool would stay longer, thus whipping the egg white around the yolk longer. Well, it does. But it doesn't give the desired result. With my 2 qt. saucepan, the second I dropped in my egg, the yolk got caught up in the tumult, dragging the entire egg askew. The result was a (still yummy) strangely misshapen egg that looked kind of like Africa, which I photographed on the delicious carcass of my former, prettier egg.
vs.

Lessons learned:
1. Gordon Ramsay is always right.
2. Use at least a 3 qt. saucepan. You could probably use a deeper one, but the diameter of the 3 qt. seemed just right.
3. Three minutes means three minutes. If you leave it in too long, the yolk starts to cook too much.
4. I POACHED AN EGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poaching Eggs?

I was watching "Gordon Ramsay's F Word" this morning while I was sipping on my coffee. For those of you who've never watched it, it's surprisingly pleasant. Ramsay's a lot more docile than he is on "Hell's Kitchen," and although he does his fair share of snipping at his guest chefs, he also spends a lot of time educating viewers on different things. Sometimes he'll present simple recipes (of course, what Ramsay calls "simple" is a 2 hour endeavor for most of us) or go to the local fishmarket. One episode saw him catching auks off a craggy cliff in Iceland, which sounds about 100x more fun than catching butterflies.

Anyway, in this morning's episode, he was talking about how to make the perfect poached eggs.

I don't know about you, but I can't poach eggs. Whenever I drop the egg in, the whites immediately splatter into an unsightly nest of white goop, and then things start foaming like crazy until I'm scrambling around for the heat dial. I know they sell little egg-shaped poaching dishes that are supposed to contain the mess, but I've never wanted to be That Guy that bought a set.

Being curious, I wanted to see what McGee and Rombauer recommended. Turns out, essentially the same things (Ramsay has a completely different and utterly brilliant technique that I'll share later). Perfectly poached eggs rely on the coagulation of the egg white, which has an insanely high protein content.

1. If you use fresh eggs, the whites are more likely to keep their shape.
2. By turning down your boiling water to a simmer, you won't get that nasty turbulence that shreds your egg whites into a pathetic splotch. (FYI, this tip does NOT help me. My eggs, simmering water or not... still tear themselves into a wretched mess.)
3. If you add salt and vinegar to the water, it helps coagulate the protein faster. Then again, McGee adds that this also tends to shred the egg whites, which kind of defeats the purpose, it seems.

Basically you have to use magic to poach an egg.

Here's where Gordon Ramsay comes in.

Once the water is at a simmer, he WHISKS the water, so you have this whirlpool. Then while the water is still swirling, he slowly pours the egg into the whirlpool, so that the egg whites wrap around the yolk, kind of like how those cotton candy machines wrap the candy around the paper sticks. The result (or at least, his result) is a perfectly egg-shaped white lump that looks like a smooth dollop of mozzarella.

Ramsay also advises directly plopping that egg into ice water, to firm up the whites and hold the shape.

Actually, at this point, I was curious whether or not he then reheated the egg before serving it. Putting it in ice water makes sense, but both McGee and Rombauer strongly advise to soak the egg in 150F water for 15 minutes, to kill any salmonella that might be lurking about. But since Ramsay put the poached egg into a hot soup, maybe he did reheat the egg before serving...

Anyway, it sounds like a really neat trick, and I'm really curious how well it works for amateurs like me. I'm fresh out of eggs, but I'm going to grab a carton on the way home from work and try it out. I'll let everyone know how well(???) it works.