Sous Vide Poached Egg
Sous Vide eggs are tricky, because the yolk sets at a lower temperature than the white. If you cook a whole egg in the shell, you either get a properly cooked yolk with a runny and gelatinous white (some people like this, some think it’s like eating a ball of snot), or you get a properly set white with a really overcooked yolk. As far as I can tell, it’s not possible to get a perfect “poached egg” with the sous vide method, if you cook the egg whole in the shell.
To deal with this, I separated them and cooked them individually at two different temperatures. You can cook the white first at a higher temperature to just set it (160-162F or so, depending on how firm you like it), and then lower the temperature (to 144F or so) and add the yolk. To make this a little more convenient, you can even do the white in advance, chill it, and keep it and the separate yolk in the fridge overnight, then add the yolk and cook them in the morning. The white takes about 60-90 minutes to set (depending on whether you start from fridge or room temperature), and then the yolk takes about another 60-90 minutes. Cooking the yolk will also bring the white back up to serving temperature without overcooking it. It’s not quite fast enough for a rushed morning, but that’s acceptable timing for a lazy morning.
I tried leaving them in the water overnight at 144F, and that didn’t work – the yolks got completely overcooked and gummy. There might be a lower temperature at which that would work. Even still, unlike with regular poached eggs, there’s very little fuss. This method takes longer, but it doesn’t require you to do anything while it’s cooking.
As I looked around for a proper vessel to cook them in, I found something I’d dabbled with but never really gotten good results with, which in retrospect is actually pretty perfect for sous vide cooking: an egg coddler.
Yes, you can use your hands to separate eggs, but I wanted to be extra careful not to break the yolk membrane. I put the yolks in a covered bowl in the fridge while the white cooked.
Here you can see the thin layer of undercooked white that was left over with the yolks, and the more properly cooked white layer underneath:
You can serve it directly out of the coddler, or turn it out into a bowl:
Here you can see how perfectly runny the yolk is, and the white is creamy and well set:
This is a great poached egg. I’m not sure it’s that much easier or more convenient than regular poached eggs in terms of timing, but it certainly requires less effort for excellent and tasty results. I think this is probably overkill if you’re just cooking for one (the above was an experiment and I didn’t want to ruin a lot of eggs if it didn’t work out), but it would work just as well with a dozen or more. Doing a single poached egg isn’t that much effort, but doing a lot of them can add up. I also got very good results using a small Le Creuset ceramic crock with a lid, though that can’t be submerged in the same way that the egg coddler can. If you want to use something like that, you’ll need a rack to keep it near the top of the water level.
I’ve found that this silicone rack is the perfect size for the SVS. You’ll need two of them for a short crock/ramekin.
