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Wow, I'm really quite amazed that poached eggs could cause such problems! I've never had much trouble with it, provided I have vinegar to hand. I find it works better with both vinegar and salt. At a pinch I've used lemon juice, though you need a fair amount to get the same acidity. There are two main methods. The vinegar and/or salt are both doing the same thing: denaturing the proteins of the egg white to cause them to coagulate at a lower temperature. You want this so they congeal nice and quickly. Here's how I normally do it. I guess the trick is with dropping the eggs in without too much force, otherwise they'll keep moving which means spreading. Fill a shallow frying pan with water, enough to cover the eggs. Add a couple of tablespoons of vinegar (white wine or clear malt for neutral flavour and colour -- but you can use any in a pinch, though red wine, cider and balsalmic will colour the eggs). Add a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce down to just simmering. Crack the egg and keep the egg inside one half of the shell, quickly slide the egg out of the shell into the water, with your hand and the shell just above the water line. This way you can do two or four at once. On Food and Cooking has another method, designed for large-scale poaching. It involves salting water up to a very specific level in a large and deep pan of simmering water. You then just drop the eggs in and they float when done. I'll dig it out tonight and post. Maybe we should have a poaching workshop where we can all share and demonstrate our methods? -- Rev Simon Rumble <simon@xxxxxx.xxx> www.rumble.net
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