I do love to indulge in a good poached egg but as much as I’ve tried, and I have tried so many times using all sorts of tips and tricks, doing it the traditional way of plopping raw egg into boiling water usually results in egg soup for me. And it’s schleppy. And I am a generally lazy person. A few short years back I discovered how to make them in the microwave and I haven’t bothered looking back. Once you get the hang of how your microwave work and find the right bowl, you’ll be delighting in poached eggs for breakfast, lunch, supper and dessert because it’s that darn easy.
The perfect microwaved poached egg
To get your glorious yellow orb of gooey goodness ensconced in a cashmere white blanket of joy (did I mention I LOVE poached eggs?), here’s how: Grab a deep, microwave safe cereal bowl. Not the lower, flatter soup bowls, it’s gotta be rounder. Plop one fresh, free-range egg in there. Poke the top of the yolk gently once with the tongs of a fork. Pop it in the microwave on the edge of the turntable. Blitz on high for 30 seconds. If it’s still goopy with white egg snot in the middle you can try for another ten seconds, covering the bowl with a saucer. If it’s blistered and overcooked, your microwave wattage is set to vapourise, so next time try for a shorter length of time. Some people splash the top of the uncooked egg with a bit of water so you can try that. I just do it as is. The first egg is fiddly because you have to gauge how your microwave works but once you have that sorted you will be microwave poaching for life!
Right, so on to the rest of the dish:
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 250 g (1 punnet) brown mushrooms, sliced
- 2 spring onions, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 sprig of rosemary, stalk removed and chopped finely
- Half a lemon to squeeeeeze over the mushrooms while cooking
- 2 free-range eggs
- one pre-cooked smoked trout fillet (you can get it vacuum packed at fancy grocery stores or ask at your fishmonger)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Beetroot sprouts and another rosemary sprig to garnish
Method
Add butter and oil to a hot pan. When the butter has melted, chuck in the mushrooms. Let them sweat out their moisture for a bit. Add the spring onions and cook for a minute, then add the garlic and turn down the heat or the garlic will burn. Cook until the spring onions are translucent. Sprinkle in the rosemary and squeeze in the lemon juice to deglaze the pan. When the juice has mostly evaporated, remove from the pan. Cook the eggs in the microwave as directed above. Arrange mushroom mix on the plate, place poached egg on top with sliced trout and garnish with the sprouts and rosemary. Serve to loved one and pretend you slaved away perfecting the egg and smoking the trout in the early hours before dawn. Earn many brownie points.
ooh thanks for the tips. I am obsessed with poached eggs and usually use the method of wrapping them in clingwrap and dropping that in a pot of boiling water but its a hella lots of effort to gently wrap and knot, while the egg wriggle and tries to slip out the plastic…
will definitely try this method!
xx
My best friend’s father taught me this microwave poached egg trick yeeeears ago, and his original method actually had a slice of tomato on the bottom and then the egg cooks inside the slice, so you can try give that a bash too. I’ve never even bothered with the clingwrap recipe, I can only imagine what kind of mess I’d make with that..!