- On today's episode of Should You Do This,
we're gonna tackle poached eggs.
We are gonna use an egg poacher versus a standard pan.
The promise here is, is that all your eggs
will be perfectly poached, and this
makes it so anyone can poach an egg.
An egg poacher is 24.99, or around there.
It has separate cups that lifts it out of simmering water.
Simmering water goes inside, materials go on top,
and each of these individual cups can be for poaching.
It also has these holes in it, which circulate steam.
So what we're doing, is we're actually using steam heat
to cook these, so that's gonna be the big difference.
Water versus steam heat.
We want an even horse race here,
so we're gonna start from the point
of hot water on each one, we're gonna time it out,
and we're gonna see which one produces the best eggs.
So, I got my pan here, I'm gonna put it on the stove top.
Major difference from the very beginning
is that there's no vinegar, and then there's
no salt involved because we're actually
cooking the eggs in these cups.
We're versing that against the standard pan method.
So we have a pan here, this one gets salt.
Just maybe a teaspoon of vinegar to help set the albumen,
the albumen is the white on the outside.
Supposedly it's gonna help it not feather out
so much when it hits the water.
With speed, I'm thinking maybe the surrounding water
could possibly win out against the poacher itself.
The water is gonna be a consistent
temperature all the way around.
There's a barrier here, the steam's gonna hit the bottom,
and then steam's gonna hit the top,
so I don't know if we're gonna have
a perfectly even, consistent egg.
All we're gonna do is we're gonna test timing,
consistency, and overall taste.
We're doing a little spray just so we're making sure that
we're comparing cooking process versus cooking process.
Water's coming up to the steam.
That's one egg, it's actually pretty convenient.
Every time you poach an egg and you drop it in water,
each one has that "oh ****" moment.
Like you know how you get that rogue egg
that breaks as soon as you do it,
and you're like, "Ahhh, it's in the water,
I'm ruining everything," and you scramble for a spoon,
and you're frantic and you're pulling it out.
This one, all you gotta do is dump that cup, start again.
Alright, eggs are in. Lid. Standard Pan.
Egg crack, go in each bowl, second egg in,
third egg in, fourth egg in.
The steam coming from the bottom and not really circulating
on the top too much is already kind of showing up here.
That bottom of the egg has already turned white.
On the top is completely uncooked.
We're hoping that's what happens here,
that it cooks mostly from the bottom up,
and then the steam eventually turns the top white
so we look like we have a poached egg, but, we'll see.
Just so you know, we actually had to go back and redo
the ones in the poaching pan because the first pass,
even though those cups say they're non-stick,
we couldn't get them out, so we snaked out all four,
stayed intact, there's that "Oh ****" moment like,
this one may break, this one may break, but we're here.
The little bit of bubbles on the
bottom is slightly lifting it off.
It gives you more of a round poach instead of a flat poach.
Already the difference I'm noticing here is,
just with regular poached eggs, there's a lot of feathering.
We're at three minutes and 30 seconds right now,
I'm holding the top, I'm gonna take these out right now.
Little hot, probably should use an oven mitt.
The outside feels a little hard,
it kind of has that McDonald's egg sandwich feel,
which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Even though we used the non-stick spray on this,
there's just a couple sticky points.
There we go, poached eggs coming out.
So here are our two eggs, poaching pan, traditional poach.
Just by sight alone, this does
look like a traditional poached egg.
Yeah, it has some feathering on
the outside, but that's fine.
This one is very uniform, but the shape is almost
so uniform that it could be leaning
on a little bit, almost feels fake or artificial.
Let's just talk about textures right now,
and I'm gonna give you that magic little slow-mo,
Instagrammy shot where we're gonna
cut it open and see the yolk on the inside.
This has nothing to do with anything.
Traditional poached egg, the white
is perfectly set around it, the yolk
has that beautiful runny consistency.
There's no kind of like uncooked white in the middle of it.
Poaching pan now, we're gonna go down the center.
Alright, same thing, beautiful yolk on the inside.
What I did notice right away when I put my fork in it,
is that there is a little bit of differentiation
on the outside versus the inside.
The outside is very hard-set, I think that's from
the hardness of the steam not being as an effective
cooking method, but, I mean, it's still a great poached egg.
Now let's take an overall, kind of flavor comparison.
Traditional poached egg, just
the way we feel on texture too.
The yolk is smooth, it's creamy, the white is set,
I have none of that uncooked white, say, jiggle.
Now let's try the poaching pan.
The white is super firm, and I know that
people really sometimes like really firm whites.
They want it to feel like it's fully cooked through.
The taste on here, I do get a little bit more
of a seasoned egg, and maybe that's why
I'm immediately more drawn to it,
but that's not saying you can't salt these afterward.
As far as consistency and ease of use,
I'm leaning a tiny bit towards the poaching pan.
As far as the overall product of a cooked egg,
I'm actually kind of leaning towards the traditional method.
So what is the final verdict?
I thought it was gonna be a runaway with traditional
poached eggs, but when you factor in the ease of use,
when you factor in the convenience, and you're not having
to worry about broken eggs, and this makes it so anyone can
poach an egg, I am still not gonna give it up to this one.
I am gonna give it to the poached egg, and here's why.
It's one defining factor, and it's a big one for me.
It is the texture of a poached egg.
The white was evenly cooked all the way through.
It was still soft, it didn't have the hard edges here.
Now if this right here didn't have that rubbery outside,
dead winner, poaching pan, because it is easier,
and it is consistent, but the traditional poached egg
wins it, it just has that little small advantage
of everything you would expect
from a poached egg, that it delivers on.
For more comparisons, click here.
Now I'm supposed to take this guy,
and flip it, flip it that way, 90 degrees.