
This odd little dish caught my eye because of a) my recent foray into egg poaching and b) it's name doesn't make any sense. "Poached" and "scrambled" are two different ways to serve eggs... how can one preparation be both? Turns out it's extremely simple, and first discussed by Daniel Patterson in a New York Times article about his technique in 2006, though I first noticed it in Food52's Genius series. Before looking back at the Times article it was hard to know what to make of this method. Was there something wrong with the 9 million recipes (rough estimate) to make "perfect" scrambled eggs out there that you thought poaching beaten eggs in water was superior? Was he looking for a healthy way to avoid the butter or oil that are ubiquitous in other recipes? No, not really. Turns out he doesn't like cleaning egg out of pans... and since he opposes Teflon I guess that's fair enough?
So onto my thoughts on the recipe. As mentioned it's basically beaten eggs dropped into swirling boiling water for 20 seconds that are then strained and squeezed of excess water. Salt, pepper, and drizzle with oil or whatever (I tend towards a high quality soy sauce) and serve with your favorite buttered toast. So how was it? Fine. Certainly the cooking was easy enough... no careful tending and endless stirring with on the heat/off the heat OCD-ness... but they were pretty flavorless on their own, and I definitely missed the butter. It was neat to do, but I wouldn't make them again.
UPDATE: I looked back over the Food52 comments and noticed that the author suggested more heavily salted water for those who complain of tasteless eggs, so I may give them another go with that in mind (I just added 2 pinches).
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