I’ve tried many egg-poaching techniques over the years, with varying degrees of success. That being said, I’ve been loyal to one technique for the better part of a year, so I’m including it here. It’s a bit fussy, with more steps than you’re probably used to, but I find that it delivers one beautiful poached egg after another. And for that I’m (now) loyal. I should mention that I don’t like the idea of poaching eggs in silicone molds or plastic wrap in boiling water; it seems like a good way to get chemicals to leach into your food.
Allow me to back up and explain what I’m after in a poached egg. I strive for a perfect quenelle of egg, fly-aways swirled into a neat top seam. A tight, smooth egg that requires minimal post-poach trimming is my objective. I like the whites firm and opaque, the yolks vibrant, the texture of butter on a warm day. The yolks should be threatening to set, but not quite there yet.
As far as technique is concerned, I abandoned using vinegar for a while—the idea is that vinegar helps the egg whites set up more quickly, in turn, reducing fly-aways. Creating a vortex is another common approach I wasn’t using for a while. This is where a cracked egg is dropped into a whirlpool of simmering water. Instead, I was quickly straining each egg in a fine sieve, allowing the runniest of the egg white—the flyaway culprits—to fall through into the compost container. Now I use a combination of the three techniques.
When I want to make more than one poached egg, I use a two-pan approach. One pan is used to create the vortex of simmering water and achieve the initial set of the egg. Once this is achieved, each egg is then transferred to a second pan of simmering water where they can finish cooking. This allows me to work through eggs rather quickly, and still achieve a nice shape to each egg. I am including separate instructions for poaching two or more eggs.