Egg Journey (starring the Poached Egg Recipe)

Unfortunately, eggs take up a lot of space in the fridge, even if you buy just a dozen. Also, my mini fridge was pretty inefficient, and didn't stay cool in the front door, but froze foods into ice in the back. I tended to keep my eggs in the front area of the fridge, or in that little drawer at the bottom of the mini fridge.
Oh the possibilities! You can poach eggs, fry them, scramble them, hard-boil them, turn them into an omelet...so many ways. There are even different types of omelets. I'll run you through some of my faves, starting with the fanciest of them all. But I'll feed you these egg recipes one post at a time, because each egg deserves its own story.

The Poached Egg

I enjoy poached eggs when I'm feeling fancy and healthy. It is an egg cracked out of its shell into simmering water to gently cook for a few minutes. This cooking process involves no butter, no salt, no oil, no nothing but your egg, (maybe some vinegar) and a pot of water. The result that I enjoy is a custardy center that slowly oozes out onto my buttered toast at the pace of molasses.

To begin, I take out an egg or two to set at room temp while I get water into a small or medium-sized pot, which I begin heating on the electric burner. Just crank that little electric burner all the way up. I really don't fear the heat when it comes to heating up my water. What you want for poached eggs is what's called a low simmer. This is when the bubbles just start to form at the bottom of the pot and rise up to pop at the surface. It is slow and there aren't too many bubbles going on. Ok, so there are a few methods one can employ here...

One method, you need vinegar, and honestly, I prefer this method. To start, I usually don't keep my eye on the pot of water and let it boil first. I take a slotted spoon and cradle one egg at a time, dipping the egg in the boiling water for 12 mississippi's. Then, I pull out the egg and place it back on the counter. Pre-boiling the egg will start to set it so that it's less messy when you go to crack it in the water.You add about a quarter cup of vinegar (apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, whatever vinegar you have is honestly fine) to the boiling water, and this will slow the boil down to the simmer you are looking for. You may also want to lessen the heat on your burner just in case (but not too much as you still want bubbles to form in the pot). Just crack the egg into the water and it should hold its shape! You can plop however many eggs you want in there. I love this method for multiple eggs. Also, don't worry, the egg won't taste like vinegar at all, I promise. However, your apartment will smell like vinegar, for sure. But I think that's a small price to pay, which is what this blog is all about.

The other method is a bit trickier and is only useful for one egg at a time. You have to start from square one and make sure the water is only simmering. Do not boil it, don't even begin to boil it. Take a spoon and start swirling the water in a consistent motion until a whirlpool starts to form at the center of the pot. Don't make it crazy like your toilet or else your egg will be so confused. When the water is swirling on its own, take your egg and crack it in the center of the whirlpool. You should see the yolk settle down and the whites swirl around the yolk to form the poached egg shape.

Now that the eggs are in the pot, whichever way you chose to employ, you need to determine the doneness you want. Since this is my recipe, I'll tell you what I prefer. 5 minutes. 5 minutes at a slow simmer should give you that custard texture with the egg whites well done. If you are looking for a runnier egg, like to dip bread soldiers in, then cook it for maybe 3 minutes. If you want that thing hard-boiled (ick), cook it for 7-8 minutes, but then really, what's the point of going through all of this hassle when you can just hard-boil the egg in its shell? You'll notice that if your simmer is a little fierce and bubbling up to almost boiling point that your egg will be more cooked than you'd like it to be, so make sure you keep that simmer down. Simmer down, simmer down.

When the timer is up, take your slotted spoon, and if your egg has stuck itself to the bottom of the pot, dislodge it by scooping up under it or chiseling away at the bottom of the egg. Pick up the egg in the slotted spoon and let the water run out of the spoon. I like to place the egg on a napkin to get rid of the water even further. To prep my delicate, little angel, I like to toast a piece of bread and spread butter on it. Then, I place the egg on top of the toast and sprinkle salt on the egg. That's it, that's everything. You'll feel so fancy. Even though you know you aren't because you got stuck in this dodgy little apartment in the smelliest city you've ever lived in.