We Found the Perfect Poached Egg Technique (How to Make it at Home)

So, I am actually super passionate about this topic! I have also taken the very long and frustrating journey of trying oh-so-many egg poaching techniques. I have tried the ladle one. I have tried the strainer one. The ramekin one. With vinegar. Without vinegar. Jamie Oliver's plastic-wrap one. Heston Bleumenthol's upside-down plate. Even tried Jacque Pépin's method of cracking the egg straight into a simmering non-stick sauté. And by far the best results have been doing it in the swirling vortex water, and this is the only way that allows me to really get michelin star quality poached eggs. HOWEVER! I have made a couple of tweaks that I have found to be extremely helpful.  Forgive this long comment, but I promise it is worth it. Firstly, I always strain the eggs in a fine-ish strainer for maybe up to a minute. You really don’t want to leave it in the strainer for too long, as I’ve found that the firmer egg whites can start to form to the sieve and sort of grip it, increasing the risk of damaging the white when transferring the egg back out. Also, please don’t swirl the egg around in the strainer like I see so many YouTubers do. You don’t need to, as this just increases the chances of damaging the firmer whites and creating even more stringy, wispy whites. You DEFINITELY don't want something as large as the strainer used in this video, but something to just get that really watery egg white out. The strainer they used in this video had very large holes, and I think they were actually losing (or at least damaging) some of the good egg white as a result. Then I transfer the egg to a little cup, just like they do. But, there is a real mistake they made in the video that I have learned to avoid; they didn't let the swirling water settle enough. Their pot size was perfect, as you really want a larger, wider pot, even for just one egg. This is because the larger pot allows for 2 things: (1) a large mass of water helps to keep the vortex moving, since a smaller pot will tend to retard too quickly, and (2) a larger pot allows for the vortex to exist with much less centrifugal force per revolution. A smaller pot would have to have a vortex with far higher RPM to achieve the same force on the egg. BUT, the Fallow guy didn't let the vortex settle in the big pot before adding the egg, and you can see this because the centrifugal force pulled the egg out of the center of the vortex and started to push it to the sides, which creates a sort of oblong, football shape (well, AMERICAN football). The trick is to let the water vortex slow down a bit more before dropping the egg into the center. That way the egg will stay in the center more readily. But there are more tricks up my sleeve. I also let the water come up to a boil before dropping in the egg. Normally you want to avoid this because of 2 reasons: firstly, the turbulent water will damage the egg, and secondly, even gentler bubbles from a bare simmer will cause little dimples in the surface of the egg white, which is not ideal. So what I do is place the pot over a strong burner until it boils, then I move the pot off the burner and the bubbles all go away, but the water is still really near boiling temperature. I swirl the vortex, and let it settle until it is very gentle. THEN drop the egg into the center and set a 1-minute timer. Now this is the part that I invented and have never seen anyone else do. As soon as the egg drops into the center and slowly starts the rotate, it will settle to the bottom and eventually stop spinning due to the friction of the bottom. I immediately take the handle of a spoon or something similar, and I dip it into the center of the water above the egg, maybe only an inch down into the water, and I start to quickly swirl that water in tiny circles using only my wrist (I do this in the same direction as the swirling water). This focused swirling motion from the top of the water helps to create a tiny vortex that gently reaches down to the egg and gently lifts it up off the bottom, as well as slowly keeps the egg turning. This is especially important during the first minute of cooking, as this is the time when the egg's shape really gets set and locked in. For that first minute, I will start and stop the swirling motion back and forth, keeping a careful eye on the egg to make sure that no violent forces are acting upon it, and trying to keep the water steadily holding the egg in the center, without letting it rest on the bottom long enough to form a flat spot. You want to be moderate with this technique; if you put too much spinning on the egg, it will actually form a near perfect sphere, which while kinda interesting, is still not my favorite shape. I think it’s still best to have just a slight sort of natural “squatness” to it. After the minute is up, I can stop the little swirling technique and return the pot to the strong burner and quickly bring the water back up to temperature with simmering or a gentle rolling boil. This is just to speed up the rest of the cooking so as to not waste time. If your burners aren’t strong enough to induce some bubbling right away, then you can just gently take your slotted spoon and shift around the water near the egg, helping it to sort of float around in the water without resting on the bottom. Now that the outer layer of the egg's shape is mostly determined, it can handle some more turbulent movement and bubbles, since no divots can form on the whites. Additionally, on top of the egg cooking faster, the boiling water is important because it helps to keep the egg from sitting too still on the bottom, which not only makes for a weird shape, but it also forms a very uneven cook, and you'll end up with a rubbery white spot or a yolk that is too cooked on one side. Once the egg has poached for about 3.5 to 4 minutes, I take it out and either serve immediately, or place in an ice bath to be heated up later. Trust me and try this, and you will end up with beautiful little mozzarella balls for poached eggs, and they will go beautifully atop any dish as proud little garnish, or a succulent plump, gooey ball on some eggs benedict. And yes, I will totally admit that this technique is not very efficient as you can really only do one egg at a time with this method, but if you are only making a small batch, or really just want those extra impressive poached eggs for a fancy occasion, this is the method that will wow your guests. EDIT: Another commenter brought up the brilliant idea of letting poached eggs rest to finish cooking outside the water. I think this is a fantastic idea and I am going to try this next time to try to achieve an even softer white on these poached eggs. Next time, instead of cooking the whites through and shocking in an ice bath, I’m going to try cooking until the whites are almost done but still not fully set in their centers. Then I’ll put it out of the water and leave on a paper towel for a minute or so before serving or transferring to the ice bath. My theory is that this will achieve an egg that doesn’t have a rubbery white, but also avoids that undercooked goopy white in the center. Can’t wait! Also, one last piece of advice: I prefer to do this with XL eggs just to compensate for the slight loss of white due to straining. I definitely wouldn’t go any smaller than a Lg chicken egg. And lastly, don’t feel bad if everything is going well and suddenly your next egg looks like a totally cloudy disaster. Every once in a while you just get a bad egg where the egg white really falls apart instantly. This can happen, especially with cheaper commercial eggs. Just strain out what you can from your water, move past it, and try again.

Forget all this vinegar, swirl effort. Put the egg in the water for 10-15 seconds whilst still in the shell. Then crack it in. The outside layer is just cooked enough to hold it in shape whilst the rest cooks. You can do as many as your pan can hold. Game changer.

Seriously love this little experiment! It's gotta be fun working with you guys in the kitchen! Thanks for this video

I do the first one but recently I saw a tip he used on the third one - sive it to remove the excess "water" but cook it just like the first one. It works for me and most of the times I dont bother to swirl it. Just sive it, pop in water with a bit of vinegar and it turns out great. My daughter loves it

I love to see them do a video poaching multiple eggs at a time. The vortex method only works when cooking one at a time really

I poach eggs sometimes for Sunday morning breakfast for the family. I use a sous vide, ATK way, 167f for 12 minutes, in the shell. Mainly so that all 8 eggs are ready, and perfect at the same time.

I love this channel. Thanks chef!

Great video and great advice. All I do is plop mine from a bowl in a just less than boiling pan for 2 minutes max and the white I don't like gets cut off with my hovering spoon and after draining on kitchen towel i turn them over and pop them on a bit of toast and season them and everyone loves them. It's maybe just more luck than judgement. And as much as I love vinegar I don't want my eggs to taste acidic, but I'll give that a bash and see how they turn out. Cheers guys.

I work in a cafe and I must poach 100s of eggs a shift sometimes. I've never used a ladle, cup or sieve to hold the egg before dropping it. Usually, just a couple nips or vinegar, get the water to a rolling boil. Then get a vortex going and break the egg on the side of the pot, and maneuver over the water as close as you can get without burning yourself and split the rest of the egg shell. 2 and 1/2 minutes and she's done. You only have to worry about the white separating from the yolk if the eggs are old or not cold. Important to always use fresh and cold eggs.

I’ll be honest: I’ve tried all of these before and I finally realised a few things: - I want my eggs fast. - I want a lot of them. - My stovetop is rubbish. So now I just sieve very fresh eggs, transfer to a measuring cup and gently slide them from the partially-submerged cup into a shallow pan of almost-simmering water with roughly a tablespoon of vinegar. If I need to keep them for a minute, I just use cold tap water. The sieve gets rid of the straggly bits, the freshness plus gentle motion into shallow water prevent it from breaking apart and the vinegar and heat make it firm up on the outside super fast to further reduce damage.

That was lovely. Thank-you. I did my aunt's poached eggs like that (#1) and she loved them. (love that small boning knife!!)

Interesting, thanks Chef for sharing!

I used to own chickens and can confirm that the freshness of the eggs makes a huge difference :) With very fresh eggs you don’t even need to swirl or add vinegar etc, you can just use a ladel or cup and gently drop it into still, simmering water 👍🏻

Ladle method looks promising, will have to try it

My challenge with swirling vortex is if you want to do 4 of those it's pretty difficult when sing a standard size pot

Love the experiment, as a cookery teacher we never use vinegar, just lightly salted simmering water & no vortex.. Fresh eggs are definitely the key though. Perfect poached eggs every time. Love the videos guys.

I’ve always used the vortex method great results every time nice golf ball shape

At my restaurant we sous vide our eggs at 63C for 45mins! Ice bathed, cracked into a bowl, then poached at a rolling boil for 3minutes. Perfect poach everytime :)

I only just found the bath trick about a month ago and it works perfectly for me everytime, I don't use the sieve though, just crack and put in the water and vinegar bath and leave it while I shower or prep the rest of breakfast. Delicious every time.

I have found the key to it is the sieve. Drain off the first bit of liquid and straight into a the whirl pool of water sitting just below a simmer - no vinegar needed. 3mins and it’s spot on every time with no stringy tails 👍🏽