Legal Poaching: a delicious oxymoron

Happy Easter from clatter!

If your Easter was anything like mine, you celebrated the holiday the way in which you should: eating rich, cholesterol-heavy food (ham and/or eggs for 93.7% of the American population*) without an ounce of guilt. Some people do the brunch thing, while others do the traditional Easter ham dinner. For my family this year, we combined the two by eating ham for brunch in the form of the ever decadent, always crowd-pleasing Eggs Benedict.

My brother-in-law, the cook at the helm of this operation (and seasoned in both Hollandaise sauce making and eating), decided to stay mostly traditional with the EB, except that he chose to use a toasted ciabatta-like bread instead of the typical English muffin (which I found to be an excellent decision). As the sous chef on call, I expected to do nothing more than sift through his new Thomas Keller Ad Hoc at Home cookbook and sip on my mimosa. This I happily did (that cookbook is awesome!), until I was summoned…to poach the eggs. clatter confession #1: I am (well, was) a poached egg virgin. Sure I’ve eaten poached eggs before, but I had never attempted to do it myself in the kitchen. While I figured it couldn’t possibly be that hard, the last thing I wanted to do was single-handedly ruin Easter by botching the less than dozen eggs in the house on failed attempts in poaching. Of course I was still up for the challenge, but I was a little apprehensive about it.**

After watching a Gordon Ramsey video on youtube (I may have sent Julia Child rolling in her grave by choosing to do this instead of reading her notes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking (hereinafter MAFC)) and taking oral instruction from my brother-in-law, I was ready to do it. With a large pot of water on a heavy simmer, I cracked the first egg into a small glass bowl. Slipping the egg from the bowl into the center of the pot of water, I then dipped the bottom half of a wooden spoon into the water to keep it flowing in a clockwise direction (maybe I would have done it the other direction had I been in the southern hemisphere) as the egg cooked. I was hoping that the egg, in this whirlwind of confusion and cloudiness, knew how to take care of the rest, because from where I was looking, that pot of water brewed only chaos. About two minutes later, I decided it was time to face the moment of truth, and I grabbed a slotted spoon and fished for my first victim. And victim it was. With the egg's hard yoke detached from its shredded white counterparts, that pot of water had the looks of a grisly crime scene – all that was missing was the yellow tape. Something had gone terriby awry here indeed, and I knew in my heart I just couldn’t blame the poor egg. After consulting with the chef, we both decided that the water needed to be on a very low simmer and I needed to cook the egg for maybe half the time. So with the new game plan in place, the second egg took a swim… and to my utter delight, that poached egg was perfect! Feeling confident, I did a couple more, until the chef decided he would take over. It was time to eat.

clatter confession #2: I am (well, was) a Hollandaise virgin. I’d never eaten it and never made it. Well, I guess I still haven’t made it, but after taking a few bites of the toast with uncured ham and that perfectly poached egg drenched in Hollandaise sauce, I decided that butter and eggs yolks and lemon juice blended together just ain’t too shabby after all. There’s also something so satisfying and fun about poking and prodding that comfortably settled egg atop the sliced ham until the yolk spills every which way onto your plate!

So, clatter’s take on Eggs Benedict? egg yolks on top of egg yolks. Ingenious! It seems that I may have to change my clatter profile, because after today’s Easter brunch, learning to love runny yolks never felt so easy. Or should I say over easy?



*clatter has made up 100% of this statistic.

**clatter is well aware of the fact that Julie Powell blogged about and ultimately published in her memoir Julie & Julia her poached egg experiences. clatter is neither attempting to copy, recreate, nor upstage Ms. Powell’s accomplishments. It simply hopes to bring a new perspective (and a less vulgar writing style) to its readers.