# Tricks to poaching eggs



## brian1brian (Apr 15, 2019)

hey! I’m putting a couple of ramen bowls on my new menu... 3-person line, if I include an egg it’s on the sauté... any tricks or gadgets anyone could suggest to make it as convenient as possible?


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## Emojitsu (Jun 11, 2018)

We used to leave one of these on our saute station, if that's what you mean. Pretty handy, but the eggs look perfectly round. Makes eggs Benedict easy, but might look weird in a ramen bowl :|
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/12...V2Z2mJ6yEKo93u8VRlwj5huKVM7CQiCBoCQ8UQAvD_BwE


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## chefbillyb (Feb 8, 2009)

make your poached ahead of time and dredge in ice water and hold in a cooler. Take one out as needed and heat it in some water to get warm. I did this for catering Bennies for large crowds. Works out great and the eggs come out like you just made them to order.....The Best....ChefBillyB


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## frankie007 (Jan 17, 2015)

+1 on doing it ahead as suggested above. It depends on the numbers you have to do. i have done jobs in which I had 200/250 poached eggs for the service every day.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

Sous vide would be your best friend for something like that.


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## brian1brian (Apr 15, 2019)

Sous vide is an extremely complicated process to be HD compliant where I am... the chilling and reheating sounds amazing and I’ll certainly be experimenting on that on heavy-volume nights. Otherwise I’ll probably just go with a stovetop poaching pan. Thank you all, this was very helpful!


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

My understanding with most HD is they have more problems with the vacuum sealing and extended cooking times than the actual sous vide itself. 

If you are cooking eggs in their shell for less than an hour, storing them properly and using them in a proper timely fashion, the SV method for eggs isn’t much different than just poaching/chilling like your planning to do. 

If you eliminate the low oxygen component I imagine most health inspectors wouldn’t have a problem, hence I can’t imagine eggs would be an issue for your inspector. 

You can always reach out and ask them.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Uh.... an egg is what, 25 cents? A vacuum bag is how much? 17 cents? The labour to put the egg in a bag and to clean up the mess in the vac-pac as well as the sealing strips costs how much?

How hard is it to poach the little ( deleted)- ers I mean, poaching eggs is a core fundamental skill, right?


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## phaedrus (Dec 23, 2004)

You don't use a bag for SV eggs- the egg is the bag.


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## jimyra (Jun 23, 2015)

Ice in hotel pan, perforated hotel pan inside, poached eggs in pan. hotel pan with simmering water on stove, lift perforated pan with eggs drain place in simmering water for a minute or until heated. You can do four dozen eggs in 1-2 min.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

foodpump said:


> Uh.... an egg is what, 25 cents? A vacuum bag is how much? 17 cents? The labour to put the egg in a bag and to clean up the mess in the vac-pac as well as the sealing strips costs how much?
> 
> How hard is it to poach the little ( deleted)- ers I mean, poaching eggs is a core fundamental skill, right?


You shouldn't talk about things you clearly don't understand.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Like poaching eggs in a pot?


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

foodpump said:


> Like poaching eggs in a pot?


If you're trying to imply that I somehow don't know how to poach an egg in a pot, how silly.

Sous vide eggs are, no question, the best solution for the issue the OP is having.

You wrote an absurd description of sous vide eggs that shows a clear lack of understanding about the technique. I'm suggesting that you shouldn't be so dismissive and flippant of a technique that you obviously don't know about. It could be confusing for people reading this post.

It's OK to admit you are wrong my dude.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Hi Someday, 

No, I’m not implying anything.

Yes, you’re right, I’ve never s.v’d an egg. 

That said, Ive been s.v.ing everything from top rounds to duck liver to custards. I’ve been using vac packing machines from the time in the 80’s when they were ten grand a pop and used automotive oil and oil filters— didn’t change the filter regularity you’d envelope the kitchen in a cloud of smoke. The golden rule with vac packing is that the item to be packed had to be at least twice as costly as the bag itself

So I dunno, I’ve always associated s.v.ing with vacuum packing and poaching at temps well under 60 c., which is very dangerous to do if the item is not vacuum packed.

You’re right too, the o.p. asked for gadgets to help with poaching eggs, and s.v. is a gadget, and a pretty handy and inexpensive one too.

And yet, for me and many others who contribute here, nothing beats poaching eggs in a pot before service, shocking them in ice water, and reheating them—dropping them cold from your m.e.p. into a bowl of hot broth and ramen is as intuitive as basil and tomatoes, and no futzing around with egg shells during service either.

With all that said, our health inspector here insists we keep a log for ALL s.v’d items: temps, times, dates—all accessible to the h.dept. whenever they feel like it. After one year we may destroy the log. For me, this hassle is worth a $8 filet( cost price that is), a $3 chix brst., or a $25 hunk of top round, but not worth a single egg—regardless if it’s in the shell or not. And now as of Sept. 1st. our dear( deleted)-ing health dept. insists we can’t use pickle/mayo buckets for storing food items,we have to use s/s or approved food grade plastics ( of which, the ubiquitous mayo bucket is). 

So I hope you can understand my uh, reluctance, to s.v. items under a buck.


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## Seoul Food (Sep 17, 2018)

I have never sous vide an egg either. So if you don't put them in a bag, how does cooking a egg in a shell sous vide differ than just soft boiling the egg? Also what would the benefits of this be? And to the OP's dish, what type of shape/texture are you looking for the egg? Because I would assume poaching versus soft boiling/sous vide would change these factors.


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## brian1brian (Apr 15, 2019)

I think the poaching pan will be my go-to unless these dishes really move, in which case I’ll use the perforated hotel pan to transfer to ice water


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

foodpump said:


> Yes, you're right, I've never s.v'd an egg.
> 
> The golden rule with vac packing is that the item to be packed had to be at least twice as costly as the bag itself
> 
> So I dunno, I've always associated s.v.ing with vacuum packing and poaching at temps well under 60 c., which is very dangerous to do if the item is not vacuum packed.


Ya don't say.

I've never heard that "golden rule" before...I think you're just making that up. Point me to a source of your golden rule if you would.

SV CAN BE dangerous, if one doesn't properly understand what they are doing.

You can use SV to pasteurize batches of eggs to make them safe for immuno-compromised people to eat, and for doing things like mayo/aioli and hollandaise. So with something like an egg it can actually be SAFER than some other traditional methods.



foodpump said:


> And yet, for me and many others who contribute here, nothing beats poaching eggs in a pot before service, shocking them in ice water, and reheating them-dropping them cold from your m.e.p. into a bowl of hot broth and ramen is as intuitive as basil and tomatoes, and no futzing around with egg shells during service either.


That's a weak argument from someone who has admittedly not even tried the method you are railing against. How can you say "nothing beats poaching eggs" when you haven't tried everything?

I can tell you as someone who HAS done both traditional poaching methods and sous vide eggs, that I can't think of scenario off the top of my head where I would recommend traditional poach over SV. SV is superior in every meaningful way I can think of.



foodpump said:


> With all that said, our health inspector here insists we keep a log for ALL s.v'd items: temps, times, dates-all accessible to the h.dept. whenever they feel like it. After one year we may destroy the log. For me, this hassle is worth a $8 filet( cost price that is), a $3 chix brst., or a $25 hunk of top round, but not worth a single egg-regardless if it's in the shell or not. And now as of Sept. 1st. our dear( deleted)-ing health dept. insists we can't use pickle/mayo buckets for storing food items,we have to use s/s or approved food grade plastics ( of which, the ubiquitous mayo bucket is).


You understand that you don't sous vide the eggs one at a time, yes?

You can cook like 50 of them (or 200, or 500) at the same time, chill, and re-therm to order...similar to how you'd do a traditional poach. Surely you could make the log for the whole batch...so again, I don't really understand your point.

FP, I respect you and have enjoyed your contributions over the years, nothing personal. I just don't want bad/wrong info to get out to people who might read this or if the OP decides they'd try SV eggs at some point.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Hi Someday

The “golden rule” came from a chain smoking crotchety old Chef who made sure we understood what a plastic vacuum bag costs.
Over the years I’ve witnessed Chefs and owners firing people, verbally abusing, and on one occasion bodily harm when they found 50 grams of cheese rinds in a 15 cent vacuum bag. ( the “bodily harm” was when this Dutch Chef found a salami heel in a 2 litre vacuum bag, but he was already p.o.’d about customer complaints of thin strands of salami skin on the meat platters because said eejit didn’t peel the salami before slicing and Chef just lost it. I’m informed that Dutch and Cantonese are the most fluent languages to curse in...) As Archie and Edith would sing together on the piano bench, “those were the days”.

But I digress...

According to our wonderful health dept. every item that is in ONE BAG must be dated and logged. We have done batches of filets in large bags, but s.v. Is perfect for a’la carte, so a lot is individually bagged. Regardless if eggs are s.v’d in batches, they are individual items, and I don’t want her pointing this out to me. I hope in your area the health dept. is a little more forgiving. 

I’d rather walk naked through a gay bar than ask our wonderful h.inspector what her opinion on the matter of individual eggs would be, and I’m guessing the suggestion of a date scribbled on the eggshell with a sharpie wouldn’t make me popular either. 

But I have to ask, how do you get a s.v.’d egg out of the shell? Is it as fast as cracking an egg into a pot/hotel pan? Is there a time or labour savings if a cook needs 2dzn poached eggs for service using the s.v. method vs. normal poaching? If there is, I’m in

One of the absolute advantages of s.v.ing proteins is a creamy buttery smooth texture. If this is so with s.v.’d eggs in the shell then I’m in.

Anyway, you’re right, I haven’t tried s.v.’d eggs in the shell, and I will be trying them out this week.


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## STEPHEN WOODARD (Aug 13, 2019)

As a short order cook I purchased two large electric skillets....medium to high quality. I could do 24 eggs in 3 to 4 minutes, depending on whether the eggs were room temp or cold. Other than pre poaching it was the best way....you can even hold them in a skillet set very low.


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## brian1brian (Apr 15, 2019)

This might be exactly the hack I’ve been looking for... most precise/least attention during service. The ice bath is pretty smart too if I need quantity at once


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## brianshaw (Dec 18, 2010)

Hack... I hate that word in this context. That is not a hack but a smart equipment choice and good technique.


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