If you have ever tried to poach an egg in a pan of boiling water, you will know how difficult it can be. It sounds simple enough, breaking eggs into boiling water, but if you try you will probably end up with a mess for your first few attempts. If you gave up before your fifth wasted egg, then you probably gave up too soon. Unfortunately poaching eggs is a technique which takes a bit of skill and practice.
Photo by Jared ZimmermanMost of us just give up and buy an egg poacher, and if it does not matter whether your eggs look like the ones the chefs produce, that is fine. The problem is that egg poachers don't actually poach eggs but steam them over a pan of boiling water. This produces a white which is not so soft and all the shapes end up the same, which is the real give away.
Nevertheless, you will produce great eggs with an egg poacher so there's no harm in buying one if you don't have aspirations about getting a Michelin star or two.
A poacher makes things very easy as you just set the pan to boil, lightly grease the poaching cups and then break an egg into each one. After putting the lid on the pan, you simply let them cook. Three minutes or so later, when the whites have solidified and the yolks are how you want them to be, it is time to eat.
The only skill is in judging the time to get the egg just how you like it, but once you know exactly how long that is, it should be the same time for all your other eggs in future as long as they are more or less the same size. Make sure you use a timer each time you cook eggs so that you can judge how long to cook each one for. If you use an electric egg poacher, this is usually built into the machine.
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