Info about Poached Eggs
How To Make Poached Eggs
Egg is a good source of animal protein, choline and the best source of lecithin. It is widely used in various dishes given how easy it is to cook them. Eggs are prepared pickled, soft-boiled, fried, hard-boiled, fried or poached.
Poached eggs are considered to be the healthiest serving of eggs. The method of poaching does not require any oil or fat in its preparation. In fact, all you need to have is water. Poached eggs are perfect for those on a low fat diet and dislike the use of oils or fat.
Always have fresh eggs when you plan to make poached eggs. Fresh eggs give you the best results. Refrigerated eggs take longer time to cook that is around three minutes. Poached eggs that are greater than one week old tends to have its whites thinned out. Fresh eggs offer more compact egg whites resulting to more neat and more round in shape poached eggs.
The preparation of poached eggs is fairly easy. Crack the egg open on one side of the pan after simmering water is set up to boil. Allow enough time for the egg white and egg yolk to cook. An indication that the poached egg is cooked is when the crust and egg white are hardened while the egg yolk remains to be soft and runny.
The cooking time runs from thirty seconds to two minutes. A small quantity of vinegar can be poured into the boiling water to prevent scattered egg whites to make poached eggs. The recommended equipments needed to poach eggs are a non-stick saucepan at least three inches deep, small cups or saucers, slotted spoon, and a cooking thermometer.
Make sure to find a pan that is wide and deep enough to hold the eggs to be poached. When working with fresh eggs, break them one at a time onto small cups. In dong so, the bad eggs will be separated from the good eggs. Be careful not to break the yolk. Bring the water to a suitable temperature of 160 to 170 degree Fahrenheit or 71 to 82 degrees Celsius. The egg is expected to separate when water is too cold. The egg whites will become hard while the egg yolk will be over cooked when water is very warm. The water should be simmering when the eggs are dropped. The taste and texture of the poached eggs is negatively changed when they are dropped into boiling water with a temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius.
There are plenty of other methods to produce poached eggs such as the use of egg rings, non-stick egg pan inserts, silicone-material egg poaching cups, steam poaching electric egg cookers. Invest in an instant read thermometer to adjust the temperature of the water.
A couple of teaspoons of vinegar when added to the water avoid scattered egg whites. Vinegar seals the outer layer of the egg white thus holding the shape. The absence of vinegar in poaching the eggs renders skins of proteins knotted in the simmering water. Lastly, do not bother to add a dash of salt to the water. Contrary to usual addition of salt, it will do the opposite and loosen the egg whites.