I Am a Poached Egg Master!

Day Five…

Win!

Task Five: Perfectly Poach an Egg

When I decided on this task I had an image in my head. I imagined I would use Julia Child’s instructions from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and I imagined it would be a total disaster. The chef at the bar where I work has told me multiple times that poaching an egg is not that difficult. I never believed him because the man has poached thousands, possibly tens of thousands of eggs so it probably is easy for him. On top of that, he makes the best hollandaise sauce on earth (at least that I’ve had) so I’ve always just assumed he was some sort of Benedict savant. All insecurities about the process aside, I realized I’d never learn to do it if I didn’t attempt it so it was time to just give it the good old culinary school try. Also, it’s just a freakin’ egg.

The first difficulty I faced was finding the excerpt from Mastering the Art of French Cooking since I don’t own the book (travesty, I know. I really need to remedy that). In this day in age I just figured I could find it somewhere on the internet because, I mean really, can’t we find just about anything on the internet? I didn’t find the actual page of the book, but Epicurious did claim that their method was the same as Julia’s so I went with that. In my search I also discovered Julia had a second method she developed after the publication of the cookbook. The video where she explains it is hilarious, in that way that Julia Child is just always hilarious (incidentally, Jaques Pepin appears in the video as well and does the more traditional poaching method so it’s kind of a two-for-one). Julia’s second method involves poking a hole in the egg shell, doing a 10 second boil in the shell and then cracking the eggs into poaching cups (which she refers to as “a mechanical device.” Love her). I decided that, since I had a one dozen egg limit, if the traditional method didn’t work with the first several eggs I’d give Julia’s Poached Eggs 2.0 a shot.

I also looked at several other methods and found the common thread to be the use of distilled white vinegar with the simmering water. Evidently the acid in the vinegar helps keep the white from running amok in the pan. Then I started wondering, why only distilled white vinegar? Why not champagne vinegar? What would happen if I used apple cider vinegar? ACV is, after all, the modern snake oil. It’s said to cure everything from hiccups to acne to leg cramps so why not use it in all of our cooking? It turns out, according to someone called Aaronaut on stackexhange.com, that it does not have to be distilled white vinegar. The point is the acid bringing down the PH so any acid will work. As alternatives he recommends lemon juice or even wine — wine! That will be next on my poaching agenda. I may also try the apple cider vinegar. Is it cheating if I make that a task? Perhaps “use ACV and poach 8 eggs at once?” Sounds likely to be a waste of perfectly good eggs.

What were my results you ask? PERFECTION!!! And on the very first try! I was pleasantly surprised, no amazed, at how easy it was. Although, truth be told, in my efforts to crack the eggs very close to the water I did burn my finger. Don’t get that close to the water. I even managed to repeat my success this morning. I still haven’t tried Julia’s trick of poking a whole in the egg and pre-boiling, but I did try the Alton Brown vortex method which seemed to keep the egg white a little tighter around the yolk. However, not so much so that it’s worth cooking them one at a time if you need to make a few. The best tip I saw while “teaching” myself to poach an egg was this: don’t be afraid of it. One author offered that the hardest thing about poaching an egg was your own fear of it so just get over yourself and do it! I’ve found that’s sage advice for most things in life.

Now, of course, it’s time for today’s challenge. It’s a Tuesday, which is usually one of my busiest days, so I need something that doesn’t take up a lot of time. For some of you this may not seem like much of a task, but anyone who has ever been a passenger in my vehicle will understand: I’m going to drive only in the slow lane for the entire day. In the interest of transparency I should point out that I don’t drive terribly far, but I do drive to both jobs and both commutes require passing through neighborhoods where drivers are notoriously idiotic (seriously, I don’t know what it is about the borders to Montclair Village, but the minute you cross them everyone has become driving impaired. Except, of course, me…). So wish me luck. Actually, wish the rest of Oakland luck. Stay off the road if you can — you never know where I might turn up.

• Most of my photos come from my Instagram feed; check it out @TomiGirl22.