Mircrowave Poached Egg
On 25 April, Scott Heimendinger posted a link on his Seattle Food Geek Facebook page to Nancy Leson’s blog on the Seattle Times website. In this blog entry, Nancy replicates a recipe (if you can call it that) from Bon Apetit magazine for poaching eggs in the microwave. The procedure is this:
In a small bowl or teacup, crack the egg into 1/2 cup water. Cover the bowl with a saucer and nuke for about a minute.
Nancy’s palate and microwave settled in on 50 seconds for a perfectly poached egg.
The time of year being what it is, I had a lot of eggs sitting in the refrigerator to experiment with, so I gathered the tools and ingredients. 120 mL of water went into a mug followed by one extra large egg. The mug went into the microwave, which was programmed to cook on high for 60 seconds.
57 seconds later, I found out what the saucer was for.
Definitely not good eats.
Okay, take two. Clean mug, clean microwave, more water, another egg. And the saucer. Nuke for 60 seconds. After removing the egg from the mug with a slotted spoon, I cut into it to find part of the yolk had coagulated into a solid — overcooked.
The third attempt was for 50 seconds. This egg wasn’t cooked enough — there were a good bit of albumen that hadn’t turned opaque. I tried again and let the egg sit in the warmed water for a couple minutes to see if carryover would finish the whites for me. No luck.
The fifth attempt was for 55 seconds. The whites were almost completely opaque, and the yolk was nice and runny. Probably about as close as I was going to get to success with this method, I figured, so I stopped there and made myself a snack.
The things I do for science.