Yesterday, I found myself explaining that poached eggs make me uneasy.
It's the shape. It's not right.
When you break an egg on a flat surface, it makes a beautiful splat. The splat has attractive and interesting irregular edges. And the yolk lands in a slightly different place within the egg every time. And sometimes it breaks.
If you fry an egg, the edges solidify into an interesting and unique shape.
But if you poach an egg, it always comes out the same. And the edges are always regular. And it is unnaturally thick. And the yolk is always in the middle.
I don't want to be dogmatic about this. I have no objections to eating poached eggs myself, or to other people eating them (although you should always, always, buy free range).
I have no idea how long this has been floating around in the murky depths of my subconscious; probably for some time, considering that I have been eating poached eggs for about 30 years. And I had never thought about it before until the subject came up over dinner, when I discovered that I have strong (but useless and irrelevant) views on the subject.
3 comments:
Depends on how you poach it though. If you use one of the more freeform "egg floating about in a big pan of water" methods then you get an altogether more organic sort of shape to the end result.
Ridiculously detailed survey of poaching methods (reaching a disagreeable conclusion) here:
http://www.b3ta.com/features/howtopoachanegg/
Thanks for the link. I still think the fried version looks better. There's something about the shape of a fried egg which I can't really define.
Happy New Year!
I can only eat eggs one way: scambled. Otherwise the yolk freaks me out. I love scrambled eggs, but would gag on any other from of cooked egg.
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