Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you How to Poach Eggs.
Poached eggs can seem intimidating,
but I'm here to show you that they're actually super easy to make.
I'm going to show you two different popular methods for poaching eggs,
as well as how you can make your poached eggs ahead of time.
The first method is the whirlpool method.
You'll want to fill a saucepan up with about 2 inches of water.
We'll get this on the stove and get it heating over high heat.
Salt the water with about 1 teaspoon of salt,
and bring this to a gentle, very gentle simmer.
A full rolling boil is too violent for poached eggs.
You want it to be barely at a simmer.
If you want you can also add in 2 teaspoons of vinegar.
It does add a little bit of a vinegary flavor,
but it helps to keep those egg whites together.
One of the tricks to a perfect poached egg is to crack your egg into a small bowl
and transfer it to the water from that bowl.
This is the whirlpool method,
which means you want movement in the water to create a whirlpool effect.
So you just use a spoon and stir the water gently.
With that gentle motion in the water you want to get your bowl close to the water,
and dump in your egg and watch it swirl around.
That gentle swirling motion will help wrap the egg whites around the yolk,
giving you that perfect beautifully poached egg.
You'll want to let it poach in the water for about 4 - 5 minutes.
Then grab a slotted spoon and gently lift that poached egg out of the water.
One beautifully poached egg.
Now the whirlpool method is good if you're just making 1 or 2 or 3 poached eggs.
Next I'm going to show you the skillet method which is good for making it in large batches.
Just like we did before you'll want each egg to be in its own separate bowl,
so I'm gonna do, let's say 3 eggs for this method to show you.
You'll use a 12-inch skillet and fill it once again with about 1 1/2 to 2 inches of water.
Give it a little bit of salt and vinegar, if you'd like to use that,
and get this heating to a gentle simmer just like we did before.
Now with this method you'll need a lid,
so make sure you're using a skillet for which you have a lid to cover the top.
Now instead of swirling it this time I'm gonna dip the bowl in the water
and let a little bit of the hot water run in, just start to kind of cook those egg whites,
and then just slowly let the egg slide in.
This method is a bit wispier on those whites,
but you'll pop the lid on and turn off the heat and let them poach in the steam and liquid for about 5 minutes.
This method produces a wispier egg white,
but you could see there's a lot more room in the pan to cook multiple eggs at once.
After 5 minutes you'll remove the lid.
Use a slotted spoon and scoop out that poached egg.
They may have a little wispier egg whites but they're still perfectly poached eggs.
Next I'm going to show you how to make them ahead,
and for that you'll need an ice bath.
So fill a bowl with some ice about half way full,
and then add in some cold water so that our poached egg can float around in the bowl.
Poach an egg using either the whirlpool or skillet method,
and then slide it into that cold ice bath to make it stop cooking.
Those poached eggs can sit in your ice bath while you prep the rest of your meal,
whether it's breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner.
When you're ready to serve you'll simply bring some water to a boil,
well a scant simmer, not a boil,
that's an important distinction...
then just slide your poached eggs in.
Remove them from the ice bath, slide them in,
and let them cook for just 1 minute to heat up.
After a minute they'll be good as new,
so you can use your slotted spoon to remove them and you are ready to eat!
I love how that egg yolk runs all over the plate.
A poached egg is super delicious, and now you know it's also really easy to make!
Thanks for watching!
You can find the full written instructions in the video description.
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