Light & Healthy: Poached Egg Salad

Today was a banner day here at Rancho Maven. My husband, who gives the word ‘inept’ a new meaning when it comes to kitchen duty, learned to poach a perfect egg. The man adores ‘dropped eggs on toast’ as they still call it in the northern-most reaches of Vermont and New Hampshire … for the rest of you, just go right on calling it poached eggs on toast. But he actually did it - after asking me to show him how to crack an egg!

He can fly jet airplanes around the globe, but boiling water baffles him. Go figure.

Myself, I adore healthy poached eggs too, but prefer them on a lightly dressed bed of arugula, surrounded by fresh - or even grilled! - tomatoes, a slice of ham, some marinated beans, a slice of hard cheese, perhaps some cornichon pickles and olives. A slice of whole wheat toast to dunk in the egg yolk is always a good idea, too. So is a glass of white wine.

Very civilized eating. Indeed.

Even normally fearless me has been intimidated by the thought of free-poaching a humble egg. I’ve tried every stupid gadget on the planet to hold the egg together in the water, and then cursed them roundly because they were more annoyance in the clean-up phase than they were worth.

No more! I took out a few eggs and was determined to never, ever fear poaching again. Mr. Maven is so pleased, since he thought we always had to go out to a restaurant to get his dos huevos poached. Now we can have same at home.

Yippee.

Simply get out a straight sided pot and add about 2 inches of boiling water to it (that’s simply to save some time). I preboil the water in my Hobbs kettle, since it boils water even faster at Reno’s 4,000 ft altitude than in an open pan. There’s your little physics puzzle for the day - do you know why water boils more quickly at ‘altitude’ than at sea level? Hmmmm …Gay-Lussac’s law of P₁/T₁ = P₂/T_2?

This all works best on a gas stove with rapidly adjustable heat, but if you know your electric stove, set the heat so that the water is right on the verge of breaking into a boil. You’re looking for those little rising champagne bubbles.

Crack your egg into a small custard cup or similar and set aside. Add a pinch of salt, and about 1/4 teaspoon ( or several drops ) of any kind of vinegar (although I wouldn’t recommend dark balsamic) to the hot water. This causes the whites to congeel or ‘set’ faster and not come apart in the water.

Take a smallish spoon and start stirring the water, getting a nice ‘whirlpool’ going in the center. Have the egg ready to slide into the water. There. Do it.

Now just watch the water swirl around and wrap the whites nicely around the edges. Let it cook.  As the center of the white - around the yolk - firm up and become solid, you can gently nudge the egg around, even turn it over to cook more evenly. You’ll get some egg white frothing around in the pan. Let it go.

After a few minutes, slide a slotted spoon under the egg and lift it out. Voila!

I had two eggs going in this same small pan, and it worked fine. Just wait until the first is about halfway set, before starting the whirlpool to pour the second egg into. For more eggs, you will need a larger pan such as a 12 inch, and a bit more vinegar and salt of course.

One of the neat things is that you can pre-poach your eggs to ‘not quite’ then set them in cold water until you’re ready to use them. Simply set them gently back into hot water for a minute, drain and serve. This works well, when you’re cooking for several people.

So get cracking on the eggs and hollandaise sauce - Eggs Benedict anybody?

Happy poaching!

-maven

Comments

[RJR]

I did it and it was so yummy! Thanks.