Last weekend, I mentioned in my post Let’s Do Brunch my affinity for a certain brunch food item, eggs Benedict. It’s my go-to brunch menu item at almost any restaurant. The perfect mix of yolky eggs, hollandaise, and bread, and any other items you want to top it off with.

This weekend, I was on a mission  to perfect the art of poaching an egg. Naturally, I bought two individual egg poachers – how else are you supposed to get the egg to poach? The cashier at Crate&Barrel, a woman who regularly poaches eggs, pointed me to the right gadget, and gave me some tips.

With family on their way over, I began poaching. Let me tell you, even with an egg poacher, it was not easy. First, I brought water in a pot to a simmer, I then added a few drops of vinegar. Vinegar keeps the egg whites from splattering all over. I cracked my eggs into the poachers, placed them carefully into the water and covered them for 10 minutes.

The impatient person that I am, I kept checking the eggs. I had no idea when they would be done. So I watched them carefully until white film covered the yolks. When I decided it was time to take them out, I was faced with a problem – how do I get the eggs out of the egg poacher? Enter the spoon. Since the poacher was so hot that I burned my finger, my solution was to hold the egg poacher in one hand with an oven mitt, and with my non-dominant hand, try to ease the egg out with a spoon. You can imagine that they didn’t turn out perfectly.

After placing the egg on a lightly toasted English muffin, I made some hollandaise sauce from an easy mix, layered on smoked salmon and capers, and then poured the hollandaise on top.

I was surprised that they turned out delicious.

In all, it was a stressful experience. I’m going to leave the egg poaching, and resulting eggs Benedict to the pros.