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Poached Eggs XII - Poached Egg Machine - "The Inhuman!"

Blog: Norfolk Single Dad
Posted by: Eddie2sox Thursday 24th January 2008, 1:19pm

On loan from Old Bob of the Woolpack‘s Grumpy Old Men’s Club, last in our competition is The Poached Egg Machine….

It’s not really a machine of course, it’s a poaching pan, but for the purposes of this blog “machine” sounds much more exciting and “brave new world“. In fact, you often see robots on the news these days……people make robots that play football against each other, robots that disco dance, robots that run up the stairs. Well, I challenge the boffins to create a robot that can poach a perfect egg….Get cracking, Eggheads!

(Wow, that last sentence had two puns for the price of one)!

This Poached Egg Machine comprises a shallow pan with a tray that fits snugly on the top. In the tray there are eight holes, four large and four tiny. In each large hole is a black plastic bowl with a small raised handle. The whole ensemble is completed with a lid similar to that found on a saucepan.

You can’t find this recipe on the Internet.

Ease & Effort:

3.5 - Pretty much a doddle! All you have to do is half fill the pan with water, bring it to the boil, pop your eggs in the black bowls, and wait. Nothing can go wrong. Unless you scald your finger with the steam pouring through one of the tiny holes of course. Or forget to butter the inside of the black bowl before you put your egg in - luckily I remembered to do this. Sit back for three minutes and your eggs are lovely - allegedly. Three minutes came and went for me and the egg didn’t look done. Four minutes. Four and a half minutes. Five minutes. Eventually, at the six minute point I removed the egg, fearful that the yolk would have been cooked to rubber.

Presentation:

4.5 - The perfect circle! After eleven previous attempts with varying degrees of success, this poacher at least guarantees a round egg. The surface of the egg looked a little…..hmmmm…….wrong though, I expect due to the close proximity with the plastic bowl. Minor fault-picking apart, a good look for a poached egg.

Yolk:

2.0 - Despite the 6 minute stretch the yolk was pretty damn good. In fact it would have scored full marks but could actually have done with slightly longer in the pan!

White:

1.0 - Great shape, worrying consistency. Although the outer parts were cooked perfectly, there were part-cooked, fluid-type patches towards the centre. Once again, a little longer cooking time would have been ideal, but when the clock hits 6 minutes, this blogger/poacher gets nervous!

Final Scores On The Doors

Australian Egg Corporation - 13.0

Mahalo - 12.5

Vash The Stampede - 12.0

Old Bob - 11.5

Mr Breakfast - 11.5

Poached Egg Machine - 11.0

Rick Stein - 10.5

Mrs Beeton - 9.0

Woolpack Wally - 8.5

Ainsley Harriott - 6.5

James Martin - 6.0

Delia Smith - 4.0

So, after two months of heated (geddit?) competition, you can see from the scores above how it all panned (boom boom) out. The Aussie Egg Corporation triumphed, so well done to them. The podium places were also filled by Johnny Foreigner, with two American methods taking silver and bronze. Leading Brit was Old Bob himself, with whom the whole thing began two months to the day ago. As far as egg recipes go, don’t shell out (arf arf) for a “Delia Does Eggs” book, it won’t be all it’s cracked (yabbadabbadoo!) up to be.

Keep your eyes on this here blog because the next challenge will soon - very soon mes amis - be revealed. The emails seeking recipe-permissions are out, and the replies are starting to return….

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