Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, September 24, 2024 at 2:00 pm Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

Is it normal with eggs, eg. poached for the egg yolk to cook quickly while the egg white is slow?

— ingrid ortega

Answer:

The egg and the the egg white, you know, you, you, that's really interesting that your yolk is cooking quicker than your egg white because the, if you're thinking about it, like, uh, typically when you're poaching an egg, you're doing it in a liquid. Um, I usually do it just a touch of vinegar into it as well too, but when you spin the water to be able to kind of put it into the water is touching the outside white first. So that should be cooking first and it's getting the yolk last. So your yolk, um, actually ends up being the last thing to cook. So I'm really interested to see how the yolk would cook quickly and the white is slow, and I think what's what maybe is happening here is that, um, you're seeing kind of the, the white, uh, kind of, you know, mix with the water on the outside and you see those kind of strings on the outside. Those are actually cooked. They're just kind of straying out into the water a little bit. Um, now if you, you know, it's really easy to go too long on a poached egg as well too. So, uh, you can overcook it pretty quickly if you leave it, um, into long. And then even when you bring it out at the end there, it'll seem like your whites are kind of velvety, but your yolk might be, um, hard and, uh, that's because you've left it in too long. Now, if you took it out even a minute or two earlier, you would see that your yolk would still be, uh, yellow on the inside, and you'd still have that kind of velvety white on the outside. Um, so yeah, it's not quite a normal thing to have your, your yolk, uh, cook before the white on a poached egg, um, just because physically it's surrounded by the heat and the white should cook first. Um, but yeah, that's, uh, my suggestion for making a poached egg, uh, is basically to a water mixture with, um, vinegar into it. I usually do a stir on it, then drop the egg in. Um, and I usually give it about a minute and a half to be able to kind of start with that. Um, um, might be off in the timing. It's been a bit since I've done a poach egg, but, um, but then pull it out with a slotted spoon basically and rest it. Uh, while you do the other ones, you can also do 'em in larger batches and hotel pans as well too. Just keep a quick eye on them and quick hand with that spoon.
Dan Marek

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

rouxbe.com