This Poached Egg Trick Means You'll Never Have to Crack an Egg Into Hot Water Again
We completely eliminate the guesswork and trepidation with this technique (no special equipment required!).
There is a special kind of fear reserved only for that pivotal moment when you must drop a raw egg into simmering water, commencing poaching it. A dozen questions race through your head: Is the water hot enough yet? Did I put enough vinegar in the water? Or too much vinegar? What's that water swirling trick I'm supposed to do? Do I actually have the agility to gracefully drop this egg into a spinning vortex of bubbling, steaming water and not break the yolk? Will it succesfully come together?? Will I overcook it? Again??
It's really just far too much of a tizzy to get yourself into over breakfast, to be frank. (And you really don't need to do the vortex trick.) While we think that with a little practice, anyone can become a confident egg poacher, we also love to test new techniques that make cooking easier. And when our test kitchen director Ginevra Iverson came up with our No Worry Poached Egg recipe, we knew we had a winner on our hands.
No Worry Poached Eggs are a lesson in what you can accomplish when you approach a problem from a different angle. For this technique, we thought: What if instead of bringing the eggs to the hot water, you brought the hot water to the eggs?
That's right, in this technique instead of cracking eggs straight into a fiery bath of water, hoping they survive, you start by cracking the eggs into the pan first, over a little bit of white vinegar (which helps the whites come together when cooked). Then you pour a kettle of hot water over the eggs, a method which allows you to pour around the yolks by concentrating the stream on the side of the pan. Cover for 5 minutes to set, then bring to a boil. As soon as the water boils, your eggs are perfectly cooked with runny yolks — and they're beautifully shaped, which will earn you extra accolades at the brunch table. These eggs are definitely Benedict-worthy.
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