The Poaching Game

Pour some vinegar in the water! Make a whirlpool! It seems like everybody has a technique for poaching eggs and, for years, it seemed like none of them worked for me. Then my dear friend, Hannah Peterson, showed me the way.

Because of how hard a time I was having getting eggs to stay together and not under- or over-cooking them, poaching had become a bit of a white whale to me, or perhaps a white blob. The thrill of the challenge was a strong motivator for trying to master the Poaching Game, but there were also more intrinsic reasons.

When I was growing up, poached eggs were something I ate at restaurants, as the centerpieces of elaborate brunch dishes, perhaps after a Sunday morning spent ice skating with my mom. We’d emerge from the Six Train at the Bleeker Street station and head into the sunlit bustle of The Noho Star, one of my all time favorite restaurants, which closed during my senior year of college. There, I might order “Eggs Hague,” named after one of their chefs, in which perfectly poached eggs would float atop English muffins spread with pesto and layered with smoked salmon.

After we graduated from college, while I was lamenting the loss of The Noho Star, Hannah became so adept at poaching eggs that what I thought of as an unattainable luxury had become her everyday pre-work breakfast.

When I asked Hannah how she had managed this, she informed me that none of the fancy techniques everybody seems to be talking about are necessary. The most important thing, she said, was not to panic: “Some of the whites will spread out and go everywhere. And that’s okay,” she told me. “You’ll still have enough white around the yolk.” Hannah advised, it was important to bring the water to a boil, but to lower the heat and not to slide the egg in until the bubbles had almost entirely disappeared. She added that cold eggs, straight from the fridge, set up best in the water.

As someone who loves to cook without a recipe and doesn’t measure ingredients unless I absolutely have to, I greatly admire Hannah’s rough-and-ready, ride-a-horse-without-a-saddle, shoes-without-socks, no-gimmicks method. But in a concession to the technique peddlers, I do follow a Julia Child tip to dip the eggs in the boiling water for a few seconds before I crack them. That firms them up a bit and the whites don’t spread out nearly as much.

In next week’s post, I’ll tell you about my favorite thing to do with poached eggs. But for now, go ahead and try out Hannah’s method. Forget the vinegar and the whirlpool, don’t bother saddling your horse, and you’ll be winning The Poaching Game every time.