I Dream of Utopia

Poaching an egg: I find what works best is to boil the water in a kettle whilst leaving a small amount of water at the bottom of a small pan and heating it on a high heat (I use 5 out of 6 on my electric heat cooker). When the kettle is boiled add water to the pan to fill it up, put the lid on and hopefully it will start boiling violently in a short amount of time. When the water in the pan is boiling violently, turn it down to minimum heat setting on an electric cooker (generally it will be 1). Then you can add the eggs, by breaking the shell with a tap on the side of the pan and splitting them and emptying the contents, either directly into the pan or you could use an special egg poaching cup within the pan to keep things a bit neater and tidier. Cover the pan and let the egg cook for 4-5 minutes depending on whether it is a medium or large egg. After 5 minutes you can remove the egg and it will be cooked with the yoke slightly runny on the verge of solidifying. I would th