Poached Eggs It Is!
Some of you think you're going to spook me and
my hens with a sinister request for da, da, da, daaaa ... "Poached eggs,
please".
Ha! I am not afraid.
I love poaching eggs. I can poach an egg, my
friends.
Want to freak me out? Here are the words that put dread in my heart: "I'll
just have mine over easy."
Why?
Why? And why do you always say
"just"?!
Is everyone deftly flipping
eggs with the confident jerk of a pan and twist of the wrist at home? Do you
know how hard it is not to break that yolk?
But poaching eggs? LOVE IT. I will go even further and say I NEVER fail at this
task.
I am not afraid that I'll get distracted by sizzling bacon, slicing fruit or
buttering toast. You see, I have a ghost
on my side. She's got my back in the kitchen, and she can poach a mean egg.As a matter of fact, she's the one who taught me how to poach eggs.
This egg in boiling water stuff is the first thing my mother taught me to cook.
I took great pride in cooking my own breakfast way before I could reach the
stove without a stepping stool. I still have the stepping stool!
Here's how it happened...
I loved eggs for breakfast. "Poached or soft cooked ... with toast,
please" I would say. "Pancakes? Cereal?" she asked. And I
always replied, "No thank you ma'am!"
But at times cereal is exactly what we got. "Horse food" my dad would
say. "Horse food!" I would say and stubbornly refuse to eat any
breakfast that came out of a box (and I still do).
My mother, being from the turn-lemons-into-lemonade-June-Cleaver-school-of-baby-boom-parenting
did the only thing she could do. She told her four year-old daughter to
"get up on that little footstool honey, real close to the fire and the hot
stove. Careful now. Grab that big ole spoon (still have it), stir that boiling
water, turn the gas down low and poach that egg, honey, poach that egg just the
way you like it."
And I did.
Come to think of it, I could soft cook an egg pretty early on too. Smart
mother that mother of mine.
The eggs I poached way back then were carried to our house in a round basket
slung over the arm of a man with a wooden leg. At least I think he had a wooden
leg. I no longer remember why I thought this. I tried with all my might to
catch a glimpse of whatever was holding his shoe on every week but never did.
He had one of those great ironic names. Mr. Quick. He of course was not very
quick with a wooden leg and all.
He came like clockwork on Tuesdays in a cool truck that was somewhere in the
vicinity of a 1959 Ford or Chevy and that might have been blue, might have been
green, but was always covered in a layer of sweet Jersey sand.
I loved the truck. I loved the basket and I loved Mr. Quick and his perfect
eggs. Someday I'll tell you all about
Mr. Quick.
I don't think I ever realized exactly why poaching eggs makes me so
ridiculously happy before I sat down to write this newsletter. I hope you too have a reason to remember
something that you discover makes you ridiculously happy.
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How to Poach an Egg
"You can only poach fresh eggs."
You've heard that before, right?
Yeah, but not really. You don't want a just-snatched egg from under your
best layer. Fresh eggs as in a day or two or three old. Of course I'm not
talking about what-passes-for-fresh-but-must-be-recalled-for-salmonella factory
farm eggs. Find a farmer, don't buy the creepy stuff no mo'. Better
yet get some chickens, but that's a whole other newsletter.
Take an egg and crack it into boiling water. Go ahead. I dare you. If you think
it will in any way, shape or form stay together, you have been misled. It will
not. It's like the Milky Way in a pot on your stove. Very cool but not so
attractive on a plate.
There is a trick, so pay attention to the
directions.
1. The classic pot for poaching eggs is wide,
8 inches or so and 4 or 5 inches deep. But, yes, you can use a regular
saucepan. Fill it ¾ full with water and bring to a boil.
2. Do yourself a favor. Add a little
vinegar to the water. A little. That's a half a teaspoon. Measure it. But do
it. It will help keep your egg tidy.
3. Use a big spoon with holes in it and get
that water spinning by stirring clockwise. Make yourself a nice little water spout in the
pot.
Southern Hemisphere readers, do you have to
stir the other way?
4. With the water spinning, crack an egg into
the vortex.
5. Lower the heat to simmer.
6. Give the water a little stirring
reinforcement at this point and add a second egg if you want.
7. Now stare at it for about forty five
seconds and then, turn those eggs over with that big ole spoon and show 'em
who's boss.
Keep staring ... so much science going on! The water should be gently bubbly.
8. Wait one minute and lift
the egg out of the water with the spoon and poke it. You're feeling to make
sure the snotty white is gone but the yolk is still very soft and jiggly.
9. If it looks good to you your work here is done. If not just put it back in
the water for another half minute or so.
10. Place your perfectly poached egg with love and admiration on a paper
towel best side down (they always have a best side).
11. From here you are on your own. Put them on toast and enjoy!
I am putting my egg on Green Posole (Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian page 338) using
half an acorn squash as the bowl and topping it with three pomegranate seeds
because that's just the way I am.
And that my friends, is how to poach an egg.
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And the Winner Is...
Here the new chickens are pictured with our rooster "Pretty"
(that's him with the black tail snuggled in with his ladies enjoying a bit of
scratch).  I'll overnight a loaf of Sweet Water Toasty Bread to the first reader who tells me who in this
picture is cause for concern with our new flock of laying hens and why. Simply reply to this email. |
