POACHED EGGS What would eggs Benedict be without perfect soft-poached eggs, their snowy whites napped in a robe of gloriously thick, buttery real hollandaise and liquid, golden yolks ready to ooze out over your ham and into the nooks and crannies of your buttered and toasted English muffin? Well, we already know all about soft-boiled eggs, and a poached egg is essentially a soft-boiled egg cooked in the nude (that’s the egg, not the cook) This does, of course, introduce all kinds of headaches How does one keep the white from spreading in the pot of water? How you prevent the yolk from breaking? How do you get the whole darn thing to keep its shape? Some recommend wrapping eggs in plastic wrap before lowering them into the water, to help them retain their shape The eggs end up with ugly, creased surfaces Other high-tech methods require hourslong baths in perfectly temperature-controlled water to partially solidify the eggs, to help them keep their shape while poaching I’m not prepared to wake up an extra hour early just to poach my eggs But take a look at your poached egg problems, then ask yourself a couple of questions When do your poached eggs work? That answer is easy: when the eggs are fresh The older an egg gets, the weaker the membrane that surrounds the white becomes, and the more likely it is that your egg will spread when it hits the water This leads us to our first rule of poached eggs: use very fresh eggs What exacerbates the possibility of the white falling apart? Agitation The more the egg shakes and shimmies, the more likely it is it’ll separate It’s standard practice to poach eggs in simmering water, but we already know that eggs will coagulate even at a subsimmer, so there’s no reason to keep the water anywhere near a boil Bring it up to a boil, then turn the heat off when you add the eggs But what if you’ve got fresh eggs and a subsimmering pot ... problems, then ask yourself a couple of questions When do your poached eggs work? That answer is easy: when the eggs are fresh The older an egg gets, the weaker the membrane that surrounds the white... will coagulate even at a subsimmer, so there’s no reason to keep the water anywhere near a boil Bring it up to a boil, then turn the heat off when you add the eggs But what if you’ve got fresh eggs and a subsimmering pot... becomes, and the more likely it is that your egg will spread when it hits the water This leads us to our first rule of poached eggs: use very fresh eggs What exacerbates the possibility of the white