Poached Eggs
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Break and drop them one at a time in salted water, to which some add a small lump of butter; some say drop in when simmering, others when boiling, not letting it boil again after putting in the eggs; others have water boiling, salt, then place it where it will stop boiling, drop in eggs, and let simmer gently till done. Always take great care in keeping the yolk whole. To preserve the egg round, muffin rings may be placed in the water, or stir with a spoon and drop in the eddy thus made, stirring till egg is cooked. To serve them, toast squares of bread three-quarters of an inch thick, put a very little melted butter upon each slice, place on a heated platter, lay an egg on each square, and sprinkle with pepper and salt. Some put a bit of butter on each egg. Serve with Worcester sauce if desired. Some poach eggs in milk, serving them in sauce dishes with some of the milk, and seasoning with pepper and salt.
The recipe is really a survey of every poaching method in circulation around 1880, offered without adjudication. A few notes will help you pick one and get a clean egg.
- Pick the third methodBring the water to a boil, salt it, then pull the pan off the heat so the surface goes still with only a faint tremble. Water at a rolling boil shreds the white before it can set; this is the hinge of the whole recipe.
- Timing, which the original never givesThree minutes in barely-trembling water gives a set white and a liquid yolk; four to four and a half firms the yolk to a jammy centre. Lift with a slotted spoon and blot on a towel or the toast goes soggy.
- Egg freshness does more than techniqueA very fresh egg has a thick white that clings to the yolk, which a household keeping its own hens would more often have had. With supermarket eggs, crack each into a small cup first and tip off the loose watery outer white before sliding it in.
- The eddyStirring a vortex and dropping the egg into it works, but only for one egg at a time and only in a deep pan. The muffin rings are the better option for a batch — plain metal egg rings or 3-inch crumpet rings do the same job.
- Vinegar, conspicuously absentThis recipe relies on salt alone. A teaspoon of vinegar per quart of water tightens the white noticeably; it is not called for here but it is not a compromise either.
- Butter in the waterThe "small lump of butter" does little in an open pan of water and mostly ends up as a slick on the surface. Skip it and put the butter on the toast, as the recipe later does anyway.
- The toastThree-quarters of an inch is thick by modern sliced-bread standards — cut it yourself from a sturdy white loaf. Thin sandwich bread collapses under a poached egg the moment the yolk breaks.
- Poaching in milkThis variant works, but milk scorches and skins where water does not. Keep it well below a simmer, use a heavy pan, and expect the milk to thicken faintly from the egg white that escapes.
- YieldOne egg on one square of toast per person is a light breakfast; two is the usual serving. Worcestershire sauce, spelled "Worcester" here as it commonly was, is optional and assertive.
Poaching an egg — cooking it out of its shell in liquid — is old enough that the English word comes through French pocher, to pocket, the white forming a pocket around the yolk. What is striking about this entry is its indecision: The Dixie Cook-Book (1883) was compiled from contributed household recipes, and rather than settle on one method the editors printed all of them side by side, complete with "some say" and "others have." That was normal practice in the community-compiled cookbooks of the period, which functioned as an aggregate of local kitchen opinion rather than a single authoritative voice. The instruction to serve on thick buttered toast reflects a breakfast table where bread was cut to order from a home-baked loaf, and the offhand mention of Worcestershire sauce marks how thoroughly that bottled English condiment had penetrated American households by the 1880s.