Poached eggs made with a poaching pan

Lots of people have asked me about how to use an egg poaching pan. I know that it is perfectly possible to achieve a wonderfully shaped, beautifully cooked poached egg without the use of a cheating pan, but if you consider how few people - these days - have access to REALLY fresh eggs, you probably understand why the interest in the pan.

Plus, for people who just aren't into the mechanics and finer points of poaching an egg, or students, or just anyone who wants an egg that's not fried and doesn't require winkling out from its shell, an egg poacher is the answer.

Here on Granary toast and seasoned with a little Sumac spice

The big advantage is that using a poaching pan means you don't need to worry about how old your eggs are. Obviously, the fresher the better, but if you've got a few that are getting ready to claim their pensions there's no need to scramble them, your trusty poacher will have them ready for you irrespective of their age.

Here, one gorgeous poached egg on potato cakes. Delicious!

Now, it's dead easy - the pan comes with (usually) four little plastic cups which sit inside a metal framework which fits into the top of a small, shallow frying pan type of affair. (In fact, mine can be used as a frying pan if you remove the five bits and pieces - multi-purpose, yay!). In essence, what happens is that you put water into the pan, re-assemble the framework and cups (work of seconds) then, as the water heats (on the cooker hob, or over the campfire - I rule nothing out), you bung your egg(s) into the cup(s), replace the lid and wait (patiently, this isn't a microwave you know) until the egg is set to your preference, whereupon you upturn the cup and so long as you've greased the cup sufficiently, out pops your egg. Yum yum.

Here, on wholemeal toast with fresh Dill.  Gorgeous.

One thing I will make sure to say is that the timings depend upon things like the size of your egg, whether you keep your eggs in the fridge or not (in the fridge means they'll take a bit longer because they're so cold when they arrive in the pan) and how your cooker behaves. So you may find it takes a couple of goes before you get the perfect poached egg. Don't, however, feel downhearted and think you can't do it if the first one or two goes isn't quite right - just adjust the timings accordingly (less time for a runnier yolk, more time for a harder yolk) and try again. :)

Got it? Well, if you need step by step instructions, I've done those for you as well. Read on!

POACHED EGGS, MADE USING A POACHING PAN

Ingredients :

1 to 4 eggs (basically either as many as you want -v- as many as your pan can hold)
a knob of butter or a tsp of olive oil or coconut oil - a fat of your choice
cold water.

Method :

First of all, you need to remove the cups and the supporting frame, then pour a half inch or so of water into the bottom of the pan. Place the pan over your heat source, replace the frame for the cups, cover and switch on to high.

Take each cup that you'll be using and smoosh whichever your choice of fat is around the inside of the cup - just a bit, just to help the egg back out again when it's done.

Once the water is boiling, remove the lid, replace the cups back into their holes and break one egg into each cup. Replace the lid and patiently wait for the eggs to cook. This is often a good moment to get the toast on.

Now you don't want the water to be boiling hard, but equally you want it to do more than just simmer. Let it get a bit frisky in there. As the eggs cook, they'll turn white and opaque and cook from the outside in. In order to test them, touch the yolk with a rounded knife tip. If it gives but doesn't shimmy like a jelly (which means it needs more cooking) - you need it to be a bit firm - then it's done and you're likely to have a runny yolk. If you like your eggs more set, then the more firm the centre of each poaching egg gets, the harder the yolk will be. I usually wait around 7-9 minutes for a large egg, but then I like my yolks to be gorgeous and runny.

Anyway, when you think you're there, take each cup out (holding the cup with the help of a tea towel usually prevents burns or scalds), run a knife very gently around the edge of the egg to release it - and with a flick of the wrist, upside down it goes onto your toast.

Sprinkle to taste with salt & black pepper and tuck in!

Printable version

Quick cheesy scrambled eggs

This is one of my "hit and run" style of blog posts, that covers something I've made for myself - either breakfast, or lunch - that was too good not to share.

This quick cheesy scrambled egg in a toasted pitta bread breakfast is one such.  I didn't have my "proper" camera to hand, so snapped a picture with my camera phone.  This is why it's not a great picture - but it's enough to give you the idea.

It's a simple enough concept - an egg, scrambled, with grated cheese melted in and put into a pitta bread.  However, it's not a stovetop job, it's a microwave job.

Super-easy, super-quick and you're left with a mug, a fork and a knife to wash up.  As you can see, I didn't even bother to dirty a plate.   Perfect.  

QUICK CHEESY SCRAMBLED EGGS   (serves 1)

Ingredients :

1 large or very large egg
a small handful of grated cheese (I used Red Leicester, but any hard cheese is good)
a small knob of butter
1 tsp cream, if you've got it (not essential)
small pinch of sea salt and black pepper
Plus :
whatever you're serving it with - pitta bread, toast, bacon, whatever you like.

Method :

Crack the egg into a robust and microwave safe coffee mug.

Add the seasoning and cream (if you're using cream) and whisk them together with your fork.

Add the butter and grated cheese and stir lightly.

Place into the microwave and give it 30 seconds on full power.  Remove and give the contents a good old whisk with your fork again.

Replace and give it 15 seconds on full power.  Remove and whisk again.  Now, depending upon the power of your microwave, your egg will either be ready, or you'll need to give it small increments (say 5-10 seconds) further cooking until it reaches the consistency you like.

I recommend you remove it from the microwave when the egg is still a little bit underdone, as it will continue to cook even once it's on the plate!

In the meantime, you can have toasted a pitta bread, or made some toast, or if you're going very a la carte, even made some bacon earlier.  Serve up the egg with an extra sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper if you like that - and dig in!

Printable version

Apres-boot sale brunch at The Cafe Rouge, Westbourne

Car boot survival kit!

I took the chaps into town for the regular Sunday morning boot sale at the Greyhound/Speedway Stadium.

Because I'm now incapable of walking around a boot sale, I take my tried and tested boot sale survival kit.  It involves a book, a bottle of something nice to drink (in this case, mineral water) and some fruit or another (in this case, two apricots).  All of which make sitting in a baking hot car park for nigh on an hour, rather more bearable.

Not much of a view!

Still, they came back with quite a haul today!  They found me a James Blunt CD, a potato ricer, a lovely blue & white china plate (I'm a sucker for blue & white china) and some hand grip exercisers (you wouldn't believe how I'm losing my grip - hahahahaha! - no, seriously).  Son & heir found a radio which he could take apart (yes, he's into that phase at the moment, nothing is safe) and hubby came back with some bits and pieces for himself too.

We were just preparing to leave the car park, when hubby suggested we go for a bite of breakfast somewhere.  What an extraordinarily civilised idea!

The question was, where to go?  After juggling various names and rejecting them because of the parking/walking situation, we settled upon the Cafe Rouge at Westbourne.

After a short stagger, during which I discovered that my knees really DON'T like going over unlevel ground, we took our places in their conservatory where it was both light and airy.  There were several other families there for a late breakfast, so we didn't feel at all out of place.

The breakfast menu is really fairly varied and after toying with the idea of scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, or maybe croque monsieur, or pain perdu with mixed berries, or how about an omelette, I settled on a basket of baked goods, which included a baguette, a mini croissant and a mini pain au chocolat.  Everything was warmed, the baguette was fresh and fluffy with just the right amount of crustiness.  The croissant was two mouthfuls of loveliness and the pain au chocolat was suitably chocolatey.  The Bonne Maman strawberry jam was predictably good.

Suitably French? Perhaps not, but nice all the same!

Son & heir went for the Croque Madame which turned out to be far from delicate or ladylike, being a socking great wodge of sliced bloomer bread with ham sandwiched inside, covered in a deliciously creamy grilled cheese confection that was topped off with a fried egg!

A great wodge of Croque Madame. Oh, but the cheese! So creamy! So oh la la!

Hubby was going with the French theme and settled for a whopping great croissant.  Coffee was ordered, two lattes for hubby and myself and an Americano for son & heir - who very quickly swapped his for hubby's latte, once he tasted how strong it was!  I noticed that hubby very definitely wasn't complaining.

The prices were all very achievable, the atmosphere was friendly and the decor charming.  I particularly liked the fact that the wall lamps all had a different shade - which sounds a horrible mish-mash, but in fact worked extremely well.

We all very much approved of this as an approach to Sunday mornings - and I suspect The Cafe Rouge may well see a bit more of us from time to time!

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Breakfasts - what do you have?

Classic : Shreddies with Greek Yoghurt & semi-skimmed milk

Having now accumulated a few photographs of various breakfasts, I thought it'd make an interesting blog posting.  After all, breakfast can be the best meal of the day - depending on what you have!

I suspect that, nine times out of ten, breakfast is a hurried affair where you grab a bit of toast whilst heading out the door to work - or even doesn't appear on the meal calendar for the day.  I know I spent many years not having enough time to have breakfast, when I had to walk the dogs and see to the horses before work.  In those days, "breakfast" was a cup of tea that I drank whilst getting dressed, then I was off and doing.

Fried egg on toast with loads of black pepper - mmmnn!

These days, I look forward to breakfast almost as much - if not more, some days - than dinner in the evening.


Breakfast on a work day, always involves an egg in some way.  Scrambled egg on a muffin, or an egg lightly fried in olive oil on toast, or the rather better for you poached egg on dry toast followed by an orange and a kiwi fruit.  

Every so often, I'll have a break from eggs for breakfast and have some tinned oily fish instead.  Usually mackerel in brine, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and doused with black pepper, spread across toast with horseradish cream.  It's a bit of a challenge for the tastebuds, first thing in the morning - so you've got to be feeling like it!  

Mackerel on horseradish, on toast (which Jonty in attendance)

Both the eggs and the fish follows the theory that eating something involving protein will leave you feeling fuller for longer - which is certainly true, in my experience.

Of course, any mention of egg for breakfast brings about thoughts of all the nice things you can do with eggs if you involve them with something else.  Omelettes feature occasionally, but by far and away our two favourites are :

Scrambled egg with smoked salmon on a bagel

or fry some beautiful BIG bacon (that's a 10in frying pan, there)

... and make a bacon & egg sandwich. The ultimate in yummy breakfasts.

But then, on other days, I might feel like something lighter, which usually means some fruit with yoghurt.

This one involved a nectarine, a Gala apple, a Kiwi fruit and an orange, with a big old blob of lovely Greek Yoghurt with a teensy drizzle of honey.


Gorgeous!


Oh, and speaking of fruit - another good way of utilising fruit that might be a bit past it's best is to cut out the mangy bits and whizz the whole lot up with a banana and some greek yoghurt.


Hey presto!  The smoothie.  It's not so good at filling you up, but if you've got a big lunch ahead, then it'll do you fine.

Thinking back to when I was a child, my breakfasts seemed to take the form of breakfast cereal followed by toast with either marmite or marmalade.  In the winter, however, we had Ready Brek.  I bought some for Son & heir recently and had a trip back in time, making some for my breakfast (just to prove to him that it was edible, after all).  Having eaten it, I'm really not so sure that it is, in fact, edible.  Even with the help from a large dollop of jam, I wasn't convinced.  Son & heir wasn't convinced either and, some months later, it went down the dog (who thought it was very edible).  I think we'd better not think too hard about that one.  *chuckle*


The winter months, for us, are always interspersed with sausage sandwiches.  For breakfast or lunch (or, very often, brunch) a sausage sandwich is rarely turned down and always hits the spot.

Once again - as with the bacon sandwiches, occasionally guilt gets the better of me and I turn to something lighter and less calorific.

All of which would have been just fine, with this breakfast of Tarantella Organic tinned tomatoes on toast, if the butter hadn't have been as hard as rock when it came to being spread on the toast.  Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.


Just look at those gorgeous tomatoes - all sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt.  Oooh, it makes me hungry.  Now, how many hours until breakfast?


Okay, so what do you people have for breakfast?  C'mon, share - even your dirty little secrets (like chocolate spread on fried bread).  Out with it!



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Breakfast : Fried Egg on Toast

Fried egg on toast is one of my favourite breakfasts.  Most especially, when we have just taken delivery of six eggs from Lozzie Cousins' back garden hens.  :)  I like to think I've got the preparation and eating of one fried egg on two slices of toast, down to a fine art.

First, you take your egg pan - just suitable for one egg (some may call it a blini pan, lol) and thanks go to Jane for it - and add a teaspoon of olive oil, then put it on a medium heat.

Then, you put two slices of bread in the toaster, get out your plate, a knife and fork and whichever smudge or butter you're going to be using on the toast.

Next, take an egg and crack it into the pan - and leave it to cook.

You may even have time for a short sit down while you wait for the toast to cook.

Once the toast is cooked, butter it, then cut it in half, then each half into three.  Place them on the plate with one slice re-assembled and a half of the other slice on each side.

Move everything to the cooker, where you add freshly ground sea salt and pepper to the toast.  This is most important!

When your egg starts to shout (i.e. the hot air escapes from underneath the white), it's done.  Tip onto the seasoned toast, and add a grind of salt & pepper to the egg.

Disappear back to the computer, where you'll be able to eat said egg with one hand, whilst the other one controls your mouse.

Simples!  LOL