HOW TO POACH AN EGG
Poached eggs look nicely and sometimes display some sort of virtuosity in cooking, although the procedure behind the poaching is fairly simple as you'll soon shall see. To make a poached egg you will need a large pot of simmering water (not boiling because you don't want too much turbulence there that will disrupt the egg more than necessary). You will also need some salt and some white vinegar (although some people claim it is not necessary with vinegar, we will do the traditional way here). Then of course you need some eggs to poach.
A simple set up then would be a large, deep, pot of 4 liters/1 gallon of water. To this, add 3 tsp of salt and 30 mL/1 fl oz of white wine vinegar. Bring the water to a simmer, without making it too turbulent. Meanwhile prepare the eggs by simply cracking them into small bowl without breaking them up too much - the yolk should stay intact and the egg white should not be too separated from the yolk. Of course some of the runny part of the egg white will always disperse itself, so just accept it. Some chefs actually filter the egg from the runny part of the egg white by placing it briefly on a perforated spoon. This will give you a more 'intact' egg when you pour it into the simmering water, and if you want to do so then do it.
Now, once the water is simmering, swirl it around with a large spoon so that you create a well in the center - sort of a whirlpool that will capture the egg into the center and keep it from dispersing too much in the water. Now have your egg ready in your other hand, before the well disappears, and pour it gently but surely into the well. It will then quickly fall to the bottom of the pot and start to cook. A bunch of egg white threads will quickly form in the water, mostly from the runny part of the egg white but don't worry as you can trim the egg later when it's cooked. Now, just leave the egg alone and let it cook for about 3-5 minutes. I usually just wait until the egg goes up to the surface (it will do so after a few minutes) and remove it from the water. By then the poached egg is cooked with a warm soft/runny egg yolk, as people usually want it to be. So, remove it gently from the water, making sure to not break it as it is quite fragile. You can now also trim the threads and other ugly parts of the egg white if you wish. The egg is then ready to serve together with some other foods. It was surely simple to poach an egg!
