Once I learned to poach an egg....I was a happy camper....my mother always treated it like some secret rite and they didn't always turn out well....etc etc...
Simple....bring a 1 1/2 sauce pan with a quart of so of water 9in it to a boil, add half a teaspoon of salt and a few drops of vinegar...or lemon if you have a couple of wedges hanging around.
Break an egg in to a small dish....a custard cup or a mise en place dish.
When the water boils, stir it round and round with a spoon, so that it swirls and slide the egg into the center of that swirl....the swirling water keeps the egg together. Keep- the water at a simmer and keep gently swirling with a spoon until the white is pretty well set. Turn off the heat, cover the pan until the egg is done to your liking. You can tell by gently pressing on the yolk with your finger.
Remove the egg with a slotted turner and slide onto your muffin.
If you want to do lots of them, do them one to a pan of water and remove to a bowl of ice water aas soon as the white is set. Refrigerate and when you want to serve them, place them into a fairly deep frypan full of gently bubbling water.....heat until done to your liking....or the top feels warm to your finger.

As someone once said....it's not "rock science"!

I loved poached eggs and make them often pretty much just the way Lindac makes them. I was watching Diners, Drive-Inns and Dives today and one of the Diners made his eggs benny a little differently and I'm anxious to try. He did the toasted English muffins. Instead of Canadian bacon he used a half slice of grilled ham steak over the two muffin halfs. He poached his egg with a pickle in the water as his acid and then topped all with a traditional Hollandaise. I'm definitely going to try the pickle thing since we always have pickles in the fridge (my DH is convinced that drinking pickle juice stops leg cramps).

I have always poached eggs in just plain boiling water. What's the purpose of the acid (lemon juice, vinegar, pickle juice....whatever)?
Linda

The acid helps to solidify the white so it doesn't spread out.
Jamie Oliver uses a technique my daughter uses as well- spray a square of cling wrap with non-stick spray, place in a tea cup or similar, break the egg into it and twist up the top to gently enclose the egg. Lower into the boiling water, left out when cooked.

Should have mentioned, the teacup is only for supporting the egg while you're wrapping it- remove the wrapped egg from the teacup to place in the boiling water :-)

Easier to just drop the egg from the cup into the water.
Yes both the salt and the acid help to firm up the white.

But I'll bet the wrapped eggs are easier if you are going to do a batch and reheat.

This technique, which I got from either Saveur magazine or Bon Appetit, says to put 1/4 cup white vinegar in a small bowl and break an egg into that. Leave it for 5-10 minutes or so. Then bring water to boil in a small saucepan. With a wooden spoon get the water swirling around and around. Pour the egg and the vinegar right into the swirling water. The egg wraps itself up and makes a perfect poached egg. It's quite amazing.

I've always like the science of cooking and one of my favorite food/cooking authors, Harold McGee, has some input in this article about poaching eggs. Especially interesting was the method where you crack the egg into a fine strainer and strain out the thin whites before placing the egg in the water. -Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Cracking the Poached Egg Code

I always used the same method as Lindac posted with good results but DH never quite got the hang of it.

A couple of years ago, he bought a microwave egg poacher (2 egg size). It took him a few tries to get the timing down but he now makes perfect poached eggs every time.

Well I'm glad most of you have found a method that works for you; I have not. Klseiverd - If you've had no total fails then you've got me beat by a lot.

I thought I'd tried all the tricks - with none of them increasing my success rate - but I see a couple new ones here (the strainer and the 1/4 cup vinegar) that I may as well give a try. I really do hope to retire my poaching cups some day.

Moe loves poached eggs so I make them often. I make them identical to Linda.

And yes, farm fresh eggs are best for poaching. The egg white doesn't spread but stays more compact with the yolk.

Starting with large fresh eggs is 99% of it.

I crack the egg into a shallow bowl. If the egg isn't that fresh and there's a lot of watery stuff, I tip the bowl carefully and let the water run out.

Then I dip the bowl into the pan of simmering water and let the egg slide out gently. When done, If I'm serving someone else, I trim off any trailing bits to get a nice oval shape.

Gonna try letting eggs sit in vinegar first.

Well. I just tried the vinegar tip, the one about cracking the egg into vinegar. Lo and behold, probably the neatest free-form poached egg I've ever made! Barely any white feathering off the egg at all. So I repeated the experiment, replicating as closely as possible, without the vinegar. An even more beautiful egg! (The one on top, in the picture.) This one feathered a bit more, but not even close to unacceptable.

The only sense that I can make of this is that since I knew I was doing these one at a time I used a smaller pot than normal. I did stir, so the smaller pot may have helped the effectiveness of the vortex.

Oh and by the way, the age of these eggs? They have a pack date of 187 (July 5) and a sell-by date of Aug 18, so they're anything but fresh.

I'd have to experiment more to come to a conclusion about the vinegar, but I can't help but question the age thing.

I can't poach an egg to save my life...always a disconnected mess and I've done the salt, vinegar and swirl thing. Maybe I have a patience issue.

The only way I can cook a decent poached egg is using the saran wrap trick but I'm not keen on cooking them that way.

chase - if all else fails, use rings. You can make them yourself out of tuna cans with the tops and bottoms cut out, or buy them. Slip them into the pan of warm water. Slide the egg inside the ring. That's all there is to it. I use rings when I want to poach a big pan of eggs and don't want to fuss a lot.

Cheryl

FOAS, I use a smaller, shallower saucepan too, and never do more than two eggs at a time. I don't swirl, but I do use a spatula to gently coax the eggs from sticking to the bottom of the pan in the beginning before they congeal.

As for patience, you do need to be a bit patient - the eggs need to cook to your desired done-ness. Maybe two minutes? I'll have to time it tomorrow.

Beauteous eggs Stumpy!!