Easy Poached Eggs

After five days of charred, (natural) barbecued food, I wanted gently cooked eggs for breakfast. But boiled eggs just weren't working for me. So I poached eggs it was. On a weekday morning.

I can't say I cannot poach, because I've only really tried it once or twice. And it didn't work, so I've given up prospecting on that. Hoping for the albumen to remain in a singular state doesn't mean it will.

So I tried something new out. Using a larger surface area in water, not as much water, tension and area taken up by neighbouring eggs, and the idea of frying, I came up with this.

How to Poach Eggs when you have the Cooking Skills of an Amoeba

1. Fill a high-lipped saucepan with water a third of the way up. Bring the water to a ferocious simmer (mine didn't want to boil).
2. Crack an egg, and very slowly and carefully slide the egg into the water. You can do this by either opening the egg so that the shell is so close to the water that it might be wet, or crack the egg into a small cup and slide it in that way. Whatever you do, keep it close to the water and don't move it around once it's in there.
3. Once the first egg is in, fill the saucepan with enough eggs to cover the surface area of the top of the pan, by following the method in step 2. This will keep all the eggs together.
4. Cook on the same temperature you had it on before until the whites are cooked. I did mine too long, so my yolks were cooked too.
5. Use a flat-headed strainer-on-a-stick to pull out the eggs, and place on paper towel to drain. It would be better to do each individual egg for this, but they may have stuck together, making this an extremely difficult task to keep the yolks in tact.

This may be an easier way to poach eggs, but if you like your yolks runny and in one piece, all I have to say is: good luck!

Korea's Hidden Superfood Meal

I must admit, this isn't a traditional bibimbap in the very least. I just got excited because I found some good kimchi yesterday. Since 'bibimbap' means 'mixed rice', this is definitely not that, but I've got some Korean ingredients (or just Asian) and raw yolks. It's the same concept, right? I wouldn't be surprised if Koreans had the best digestive systems in all the land. This stuff is so acidic! (Well, my random version was).

From the top going clockwise I had some funny brined mushroom things, a whole cubes avocado with apple cider vinegar to stop it from oxidising (and there was a LOT of avo by the time I'd mixed it all in), kimchi hiding under everything else, far too much wakame for my liking (but it hid well in the kimchi vinegary sauce), scrambled egg whites (I had to make something look like rice), fish sauce in the dish at the top, md of course raw egg yolks. I so want to try a normal version with some sliced beef or raw fish and rice to sop up all the vinegar. I'll have to get my Korean friend to take me out one day :)

Extra Day

Pupil free days are like a breath of relief and give me time to do random stuff I'm too busy to do during the week. Since we haven't got any impending assessments coming up, I decided to spend a few hours in the kitchen making stuff - mostly just because I can.

I started off with a batch of shortbread cookies to take down to half star, where s'mores aren't only a tradition, but a NECESSITY. So I needed a graham cracker to put my future chocolate (coconut oil and cocoa) and marshmallows on. I found a fantastic recipe over at Paleo Spirit and whizzed it up. Only problem was, she said it would be super crumbly, but mine was a pretty wetish dough. So I had to keep sprinkling coconut flour and arrowroot on until it became a little drier. It was still a dough when I sliced it up, but it did start crumbling a teeny bit when I tried to put it on the baking tray. And the batter tasted good. And you know what that means...

After cooling, they turned out FANTASTIC. Ok, so I burnt them a wee bit, but I always burn shortbread. But like I said, they were uber tasty and shortbready. Guess who's ready for some arrowroot cookies made with actual arrowroot???

Then I transformed half-eggs into a half-jar of mayonnaise (this emulsion baffles me every time I make it). I'd bought some mustard powder so I wanted to try it out, because it's what people seem to be putting in their mayos. And I added three yolks and less oil because... why not? Yolks are probably better than oil, and I didn't want to use up all the olive oil (which probably would've happened if I was allowed to keep going). The mustard added a bit of a chilli kick. You'd take a lick of the stick blender and then wonder if your tongue is burning slightly from the mustard or the blade. But you'd continue licking it anyway.

Mayleo

...sometimes combining words doesn't look as good as it sounds. I was trying to come up with a cool title for this post and I ended up combining 'mayo' and 'paleo' in my head and came up with 'mayleo'...which doesn't look as good... Some things just don't mix well, like extra virgin olive oil and egg yolks.

My mayo actually worked, so that's not where I'm going. But one tip I'd love to throw out there: DON'T USE EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL. I used about 3/4 evoo, some macadamia oil and some sweet almond oil, because I read a thousand recipes saying 'don't use evoo' and I was like 'I can handle a bit of evoo'. But no. Even slightly diluted, just no.

And I didn't even use that much oil. But when I make it again, I'll make sure I have a bit more patience (and a lighter tasting oil) so that I can see what it's like when you use all of the oil. I only used a third of the amount.