Cookaholics Bulletin Board

That's the beauty of SV...totally capable of prepping ahead, and then simply reheating.

Amy

I have been wanting to try this but you lost me at "super runny bit"

I am one of those who needs the whites firm, the yolk, however can be nice and runny. I will have to experiment, starting at Amy's 145 for 45 mins and going up.

--Lisa

The white is not homogeneous; it actually has a few bits that cook at different temperatures. Now, when you cook the crap out of an egg, all the white bits will be cooked. But if you go for a soft-boiled style egg, particularly very exactly cooked, some of those white parts will be firm and a little bit if it won't. I strongly dislike runny whites (makes me gag), but like the SV ones very much; the runny part (a very small part) does run off and additionally it isn't the badly textured bit. But I prefer it to be removed, which is easy (some people use a slotted spoon). If you look at the section call Perfect Egg here (scroll down a bit), you'll see some pics at various temperatures. You can see that the white can be part coagulated and part not, to various degrees, in various situations.

It is worth a few eggs to experiment with. I like them on toast or a salad, or asparagus or many other things...

Maybe I'm missing something; for me there is big difference between poached and soft-boiled - the appearance! A poached egg is round, sits atop an English muffin in perfect symmetry and even better with a round of Canadian bacon or ham in between. That would be 3 round thingies.

A soft-boiled egg, regardless of preparation, is destroyed as soon as the shell is broken.

How do you get 'round' via SV?

Depends on how soft your soft-boiled is. An SV egg, at these temps, still has some 'flow' left in them, so will naturally settle into a round shape.

That was interesting, thanks for sharing. I think I'd be going for a 146 degree by that chart. I'll have to give it a try. Sadly, the Nomiku was pushed out until May. Not surprising but I am sad.

--Lisa

Sorry to be so late to the conversation, but Heston just did his "perfect" poached eggs in his (fairly) recent series "How to Cook Like Heston". First point he made was to use fresh eggs. Second point was to use a slotted/perforated spoon to drain the runny white from the uncooked egg, retaining the firmer egg white for poaching. I have that episode recorded some where, zipping through them now.

.
.
.
forwarding through the egg episode -
.
.
.
boiled
.
.
.
scrambled
.
.
.
P O A C H E D

He talks about using vinegar. He mentions the vortex approach. Finally ...

1. Fresh egg (won't float in water, old eggs will float)
2. Don't cook over direct heat - put a plate upside down in the pot you poach in to keep the egg away from direct heat
3. Drain the watery white before poaching it through a perforated/slotted spoon.
4. Water Temperature - 80C (measure it)
5. Time is 4 minutes (at sea level, those of us at altitude have to experiment)

No vinegar, vortex is optional if you need something to keep you occupied for the 4 minutes. (joke)

Kenji borrowed this technique - if you want to see his video it's at

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/how-to-poach-eggs-easy-way-poached-breakfast-video.html

I posted this recently on the Eat Your Books blog and it was extremely popular.

Cool, nice to see Kenji make an attribution to Heston B. Rereading my post, I can only wince at the reaction my English teachers would have at my awkward sentence structure: Drain the watery white through a perforated/slotted spoon before poaching it.

And then my slippery grip on the effects of temperature at altitude: 80C at sea level is very, very similar to 80C at 5000F. The temperature that water boils at changes at 5000F, but under that, I am guessing that the effects are quite similar.

The poaching question plays into my previous frustration with making a decent Hollandaise Sauce here in the Philippines. I went round and round with that, giving up until the understanding folks in this forum guided me into both a better approach and encouraged me to find the real cause of my failure, high water content in the butter here.

Now, since I've started making sausages and bacon, I'm dreaming of a slice from a breakfast "fattie"* replacing the traditional Canadian Bacon on an English Muffin and my now successful Hollandaise Sauce running down the sides of the "perfectly poached" egg. Even with my unabashed admiration for Heston B, the sous vide approach is a siren tugging at the the tiller.

Thanks for the link to Kenji's poached eggs. I tried this yesterday & it came out just like his picture! what a breakthrough.