The healthiest way I have found to cook eggs is also the easiest method – to simply poach them.
By cooking them in water, you can avoid the fat and cholesterol from the butter or margarine normally used with a frying pan. Simply fill a small pot about 3/4 full with water and add about a teaspoon of vinegar. Cover the pot and bring the mixture to a rolling boil on medium heat.
Carefully crack and drop the eggs in (I normally cook only two at a time), being careful not to crack the yolk. Let the eggs boil for 2-3 minutes and check them frequently so that they cook to your desired consistency. If you prefer a liquid yolk, you will need to remove the eggs from the water earlier than ifyou would like this show the yolk to be fully cooked and dry.
Watch the pot when possible as the eggs are boiling so that the water does not begin to boil over the pot. If this happens, remove the pot from heat temporarily or turn the burner down lower. Once you remove the eggs from the water, you can add flavor with a sprinkle of salt and pepper or by topping them with cheddar cheese.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What do you recommend for a good Olive Oil?
tip, to avoid any “funky eggs” ruining your boiling water –
you can first break your egg into a bowl, then gently slide into pot. =)
Crack or break? Crack to me would imply that the egg shell is breached but not gone, while break seems to me to indicate the removal of the shell. So, I picture this cross between a “boiled” egg and a “poached” egg from which one would remove the shell and then season.
I might not have thought to be confused about that except for the fact that when I’ve dropped the egg (with shell removed) into the boiling water, the egg white tends to separate rather than remaining a cohesive yolk-surround.
Also, I can sometimes be a “wooden-headed literalist.” ( :
Avoid fat and cholesterol from butter? Both fat and cholesterol are essential to human life! If your body doesn’t get cholesterol, it will manufacture it. Our brains are very fat-rich
Also, it was organized medicine and FDA types that attacked these substances and made them practically taboo for a long while. Meantime the people who grew up on REAL BUTTER (and LARD when the family cow “went dry,” before the birth of a calf, for example), lived longer than any generation in recent history; while those who went to “healthy” (medically approved but hydrogenated) margarine got strokes and heart attacks in record numbers!
The corporations as well as registered, certified, or licensed professionals are all to some degree “dependent” on the state. Hmm!
Break the egg- as in do not put the shell in the water. This will allow the egg to spread and freely cook in the water/vinegar.
Also, I can agree with you that fat and cholesterol are necessary parts of the human diet, but argue that there can be healthy alternatives to butter and margarine. For example, if I choose to fry a part of a meal, I generally just use olive oil. In addition, there are plenty of ways for fat and cholesterol to present themselves in a normal diet, and I am merely showing a way to avoid that in cooking eggs.
The vinegar does seem to help keep the white cohesive – we were able to do this successfully (ok, Justin was), slapped it on some toast (it was delicious!)
Yes, I have read terrible things about margarine (and other hydrogenated oils). I try to avoid them at all costs.
But no matter what you tell them, some people are going to eat margarine anyway – so here is an alternative, more indirect way to get them to cut back on it.
Butter certainly has its qualities – especially if you can get it fresh from the farm. But Michelle has a point – there are thousands of delicious opportunities to eat butter in your diet – especially raw, which has been shown to be less damaging to the nutrients (including fats) than cooking.
Excellent points ladies! Thanks for the lively, educating discussion!
Also Ruth, you will appreciate this – our login password at the old company used to be FDAFU
=D