The Toaster Hack You Need To Perfectly Time Your Poached Eggs
Eggs are one of very few food items that can be both an ingredient and a full meal. They're incredibly versatile, so much so that culinary schools spend entire weeks on mastering these little guys — see the iconic "egg-breaking" scene in the 1954 film "Sabrina". Scrambled, boiled and sunny-side-up are some of the easiest techniques to master. But after you tucked into that Eggs Benedict at brunch last weekend, you may have decided you're ready for one of the trickier methods — poaching.
Poaching is a cooking technique that basically means placing your protein, in this case an egg, into hot but not boiling water. One of the hardest parts of this method is the timing. If submerged in the water for too long, the yolk will become solid and chalky; move too quickly and the egg whites will spread and leave you with a lone-standing yolk. But one TikToker has given us an amazing tip for creating the perfect poached eggs every time. Best of all, there's no timer required.
Turn to the toaster
@gourmetgab 12 DAYS OF EGGS 🍳 Day 4: Poached Eggs using a toaster as the timer 🍞 #12daysofeggs #eggrecipe #egghack
There are plenty of poached egg methods out there that tell you to use vinegar (or not), swirl your egg-cooking water, and only poach eggs of a specific temperature. Those can all be useful, but they'll all fall flat if you don't know how long to cook your poached eggs. TikTok user @GourmetGab loves to share her daily eats, as well as tips her grandma taught her in the kitchen. When it comes to poached eggs, she has a great timer hack that also happily leaves you with two golden pieces of toast. Instead of setting a timer on your oven or phone, just put two pieces of bread in the toaster "the moment the eggs are in," says Gabriela, adding "By the time our bread is golden brown your eggs should be done too." The time it takes most toasters to give you beautifully golden toast is about three minutes, which is the perfect amount of time for your egg whites to fully set without letting your yolk get too solid.
Once your toast is ready, slather it in butter, then use a slotted spoon to gently lift and drain your poached eggs. Then use that toast to dig into your luxuriously runny poached eggs. "I always have two pieces of toast with my poached eggs, I leave one whole and cut one diagonally for dipping," recommends Gabriela. And there you have it, a perfectly timed hot breakfast of poached eggs and toast in just three minutes.