[Sca-cooks] poached eggs
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
adamantius1 at verizon.net
Tue Jan 5 20:34:54 PST 2010
On Jan 5, 2010, at 11:09 PM, Robert Dunn wrote:
> I read (and tested) that adding a splash of vinegar to the boiling water will help hold the egg whites together when poaching. It makes for a cleaner presentation too.
Yes, an acid pH to the cooking water can help the proteins coagulate faster, as in a second or two faster, before there's time for the whites to flow around in whatever currents there are in the cooking liquid.
Real fanatics will poach in a deep pot of simmering acidulated water which they have stirred into a "whirlpool" effect immediately before adding the egg... sometimes you can get a nearly spherical poached egg that way. As I recall, Julia Child was a fan of that technique.
Adamantius
"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's bellies."
-- Rabbi Israel Salanter
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