Poached eggs will be 'perfect' with Nigella Lawson's 'stress free' method
TV favourite Nigella Lawson has shared her "stress free" method for achieving perfect poached eggs every time.
Nigella Lawson has shared a “stress-free” method for achieving perfect poached eggs. Eggs are a versatile food which can be prepared in multiple ways, with poached eggs notoriously tricky to get just right.
When correctly cooked, poached eggs should appear to be smooth and round, with a cloudy film enveloping the yolk and, once cut, the vibrant yellow yolk should ooze out, almost like a sauce. There’s an abundance of guidance and tips online and in recipe books to help people whip them up properly but it can still go wrong.
The yolk can be overcooked so it’s not runny which spoils the desired taste, they can shrink too much, or they can become foamy and undercooked. Food writer and television cook Nigella Lawson has shared her simple method in a recipe she’s been making for more than 25 years.
Taking to Instagram, the food whizz, 65, shared a photo of a perfectly runny poached egg sitting on a bed of kale with chopped pieces of chorizo.
In the caption accompanying her post, Nigella penned: “I’ve been making Recipe Of The Day – Kale with Chorizo and Poached Egg – for over a quarter of a century, and recommend it deeply. The kale I tend to go for now is cavolo nero, though it did start off life with curly kale. Recipe includes my stress-free egg-poaching method, [by the way].”
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Nigella Lawson’s “stress free” poached eggs
Nigella’s approach to poached eggs is to “crack a large cold egg into a cup” and then “add a teaspoon of lemon juice (or ½ teaspoon of cider vinegar or white wine vinegar) over the white”.
With the water, she urges people to bring it to “a delicate bubble” that’s “not boiling or anywhere near” and “then slip in the egg, leaving behind the watery white that has collected in the bottom of the cup”.
She then advises people to leave the water on low, “or even switch it off”, cooking the egg for around five minutes, though she does recommend checking on it after four minutes.
Once done, simply remove it from the water “gently” using a slotted spoon. In the comments section on Instagram, people were keen to share their thoughts on the recipe.
One person said: “This looks amazing!” Another agreed and simply said: “Yum”, while a third commented: “It looks wonderful!”
Nigella Lawson first got her start as a food critic and restaurant reviewer before branching out and penning a cookbook, How To Eat, which became a bestseller.
Soon after, she was hosting own Channel 4 cooking show series, Nigella Bites, and releasing more best-selling cookbooks.
She’s known for her warm, approachable demeanour alongside her indulgent approach to making food which is accessible and easy to follow.
