31. Mai 2007

to poach or not to poach, that is the question

the temperatures have dropped significantly around here and we are going from cool ice cream straight to heart warming soup. global warming is really springing surprises, weather-wise.

suppe mit pochiertem ei
when i saw the recipe of the week in one of my food newsletters i was intrigued.
they want me to poach an egg!
i've never done that, how on earth do i do that?

the recipe itself is rather simple: a few ingredients and a stock cube, that does not sound to challenging, right? lacking coriander i opted for parsley and since i was out of garlic i obviously did not add garlic either.

i diced a slice of bread and put it in a soup dish. i chopped a handfull of parsley and added it with a drizzle of vegetable oil to the dish as well. i also added ground pepper, one of my favorite seasonings lately ... i let the mixture rest while i was bringing 300 ml of vegetable stock to a boil.

while all that is doable and does not require any special skills whatsoever, my attempt to poach an egg was ... a mess! look at this, it really is a mess!!
suppe mit pochiertem ei
tell me: are there any tricks to poaching this little squishy bastard?? as far as i know you are supposed to wrap the eggwhite around the yolk and the water should be brought to a boil beforehand and not boil anymore when you throw in the egg. it looks like i did not wrap the eggwhite around quickly enough ... but other than that i don't know that went wrong! any suggestions on why about half of my eggwhite was bustling about?

suppe mit pochiertem ei
though it looked rather odd i can assure you, it tasted amazing!

suppe mit pochiertem ei

5 Kommentare:

Anonym hat gesagt…

your writing is great! I love it.

ilingc hat gesagt…

Hi Gerda,
I heard that a bit of vinegar does the trick! Poaching eggs takes a bit of practise, I've attempted it like at least 5 times before I got it right!

This is the one I follow:
1. Boil some water in a small shallow pan.
2. Crack your egg into a small bowl.
3. Mix in 1tbsp white vinegar.
4. Make a whirlpool in the pan by stirring the water vigorously (not too vigorous!) with a spoon and then gently pour in your egg.
5. Lower the heat and let it cook for a bout 3-5mins depending on how you like your eggs.

Mine turned out like this

Of course, there are other methods out there. Some don't even use vinegar. Don't give up on it just yet :)

Sara hat gesagt…

squishy bastards??? you are too funny! you did a better job than me, the first time I poached an egg i had the water at a full boil - imagine what it looked like!

Anonym hat gesagt…

your poached eggs don't look bad ! The only thing I can add, don't boil the water too vigorously.

tschoerda hat gesagt…

thank you for your helpful comments!

i will try the whirlpool thing the next time, that should keep the eggwhite from floating around loose right from the start ...