EGGS

Hidy-ho folks!

If you were to ask me two years ago what my favourite way of eating eggs was, I would hands down reply with fried. a crispy, sunny-side up fried egg. Usually paired with a frozen lentil patty and baked beans. Because that's what I lived off for around 6 months when I first became vegetarian. #Healthyliving. ;)

I didn't mind boiled eggs (hello, toast soldiers?) but would not even consider scrambling my eggs (still not the biggest fan) or whatever the heck poaching was. (I was a naive child!)

If you were to ask me right this second what my favourite way of eating eggs is... it would be poaching all the way (followed closely by boiling, because- TOAST SOLDIERS!).

Yes, like every other person who has never made a poached egg before, I was terrified when I made my first one. The whole prospect of sliding a fragile little cracked egg into hot water and expecting it to stay together just seemed way too good to be true. Alas, I cracked it in to the pot of simmering water, held my breath and watched as the magic began to happen before my eyes.

The transparent blob around the yolk turned into the distinguishable white of an egg, creating a protective blanket around the golden treasure inside, keeping the egg together, coagulating the protein, forming a solid body.

I'm not going to lie, I was impressed and pretty much hooked.... with the cooking side. After years of frying my eggs, poached eggs (like many other things poached compared to their fried friends) just seemed dull and flavourless. But because I was hooked with cooking poached eggs, I consequently ended up eating many poached eggs (generally topping them with salsa/ hommus for flavour (or even popping them in a sandwich.. ;)

 ^Eggs topped with hommus ^

^Egg sandwich ^

After a magical number of times of eating poached eggs... they really started to grow on me. It came to the stage where I hadn't eaten a fried egg in maybe a year?! As I also chose poached eggs- for the fun cooking part and the taste! Now? Now I love to eat hm plain Jane too, enjoying the flavour of the egg. It always surprises me how much taste buds can change!

Anywho, the point of this post was, as of a reader request, to share how I make my version of poached eggs (and it's a heck of a lot easier than you may think!)

I remember my Foods teacher telling us once to crack the egg into a bowl lined with cling wrap, wrap it up and twist the top and then drop it into the boiling water. For some reason this method didn't seem to like me too much and we won't go into the details. Instead, here's my method:

You will need:

1 or 2 eggs (or 3 or 4... depending on how many eggs you want!)

A small bowl

A small saucepan (bigger if cooking more eggs) filled halfway with water.

What you need to do:

1. Bring the water in the saucepan to the boil:

2. Turn down the heat slightly so the water is simmering (don't wanna break the yolk!)

3. Crack your egg into the small bowl:

4. Gently slide the egg out of the bowl into the saucepan (not from a height! Close to the water)

5. Add the other eggs and then wait for the water to return to simmering before turning off the heat, replacing the lid and leaving to sit for 4 minutes (runny yolk) or longer (harder yolk)
6. Using a slotted spoon carefully remove eggs from water and place on paper towel:

Et voila! Poached eggs!

Ofcourse you can do the swirling technique where you use a spoon to swirl the water, creating a whirlpool in the saucepan so your poached eggs form a more boiled egg shape, but I prefer a flatter poached egg to top of bowls of food/ plonk on toast.

I enjoyed these eggs atop some brown rice, roasted eggplant and sweet potato with cumin and some avocado:

Yum!

What about you?
What's your favourte way to eat an egg?
What was your favourite way to eat eggs as a kid?
Any toast soldier fans out there?

Well that's it from me today folks, I hope you all have a lovely day, eat something delicious, maybe try out poaching an egg if you haven't before and... just smile! Bye friends!! :D