Home › Whites of Eggs › Poached Whites of Eggs Plain
Poached Whites of Eggs Plain
Take four whites of eggs, and poach them in a poacher, and either serve on hot buttered toast with pepper and salt or on spinach.
A two-line recipe that depends entirely on equipment: egg whites cannot be free-poached in open water the way whole eggs can, which is why the original insists on a poacher.
- Why the poacher is not optionalWithout the yolk to hold it together, raw white spreads into threads and feathers the moment it hits open water. Use a poacher's buttered cups, a greased ring, or small buttered ramekins set in a covered pan of barely simmering water.
- TimingWhites set at a lower temperature than yolks, around 145-150F, so four of them are done in about 3 to 4 minutes over water held just below a simmer. Take them out while the centre is still soft and glossy; held longer they turn tough and weep.
- Water level and heatThe water should come partway up the outside of the cups and never boil hard. A rolling boil makes the whites puff, then collapse rubbery.
- SeasoningUnlike a whole egg, plain white has almost no flavour of its own, so it wants more pepper and salt than you would expect, and butter on the toast is doing real work here. The recipe seasons at the table rather than in the pan.
- On spinachWilted spinach, well drained and pressed, then chopped with butter and a little nutmeg. Wet spinach will thin out under the eggs and soak the plate.
- YieldFour whites make one substantial serving on two slices of toast, or two light ones. A single white is about two-thirds the volume of a whole egg, so four whites amount to a little under three eggs' worth; scale accordingly.
- The leftover yolksThe recipe assumes you have whites on hand for a reason. Yolks keep a day or two covered with a film of cold water in the refrigerator, and go into custard, hollandaise, mayonnaise or an enriched pastry.
Sections devoted to "whites of eggs" and "yolks of eggs" were a fixture of household cookbooks a century ago for a practical reason: a kitchen that made its own custards, cakes, mayonnaise and clear soups constantly ended up with one half of the egg unused, and throwing food away was close to a moral failing. Clarifying consommé used the whites; sponge cakes and boiled icings took whites while sauces and puddings took yolks; and the surplus had to be turned back into a meal. The dish itself is essentially poached eggs on toast with the richest part removed - a frugal cook's version of a hotel breakfast, and a reminder of how much the flavour of an egg lives in the yolk.