Anyone use one of these or similar? Do they work?

They do. I think I have one somewhere but it’s more interesting a party piece than actually useful or necessary.

Cut bread (4 thick slices) and put in toaster
Put two eggs in small pan.

I have concerns about your bread:egg ratio. The bread is merely a means of conveyance for the egg.

My egg issue is that the rest of my household are heathens who like the eggs to be solid. So each time I poach/scramble/boil I have to do two timings; one for nice eggs, one for them. SMH.

if you’re in the US you have to keep eggs in the fridge cos they wash them, whereas we don’t.

(it might be the other way round as to who washes them, but the fridge rule remains the same)

I have concerns about your bread:egg ratio.

Fear not,space is needed for the bacon and mushrooms. 😉

Never tried UB tbh, but it’s certainly better than boling the flavour out of brown rice for the guts of half an hour!

Sound like your cooking rice wrong. Wash the rice throughly, then bring up to simmer, leave it to simmer for 10 minutes, turn off heat & fit a lid, leave until it absorbs all if the water (double the water to rice) or around 5mins, may be slightly longer for brown rice but no boiling involved. We used to have a rice cooker but this method is actually better rice than the rice cooker, so that got binned.

Edit: Why US do need to refrigerate eggs but we don’t

I can’t be doing with “moulded” poached eggs. simonbarnes’ poached eggs look delightful.

simondbarnes
Full Member

I had no idea that egg cookers were a thing. Crazy!
Think I’ll just stick with a pan of water

Those look brilliant, what’s your technique?

No vinegar, no swirling, no pre-boiling in the shell. You do need very fresh eggs.

Those look brilliant, what’s your technique?

Simmering water, swirl it with a whisk, crack egg into middle, lid on, heat off, 3 minutes

Sound like your cooking rice wrong. Wash the rice throughly, then bring up to simmer, leave it to simmer for 10 minutes, turn off heat & fit a lid, leave until it absorbs all if the water (double the water to rice)

The concern (especially with brown rice) is the elevated levels of arsenic in the husk. Cooking it as above releases the arsenic into the water, but since you’re absorbing all the water again you get the full dose!

I guess in the overall scheme of things it’s not that big a deal (you don’t hear of people dropping dead because of it) but it was enough to put me off that style of cooking.

boiling the flavour out of brown rice for the guts of half an hour!

That’s what the salt is for! 😂

Sound like your cooking rice wrong. Wash the rice throughly, then bring up to simmer, leave it to simmer for 10 minutes, turn off heat & fit a lid, leave until it absorbs all if the water (double the water to rice)

For jasmine or sticky rice, yes, but I like my Basmati nice and light, absorption method not as good for this. Different rices benefit from different methods.

For jasmine or sticky rice, yes, but I like my Basmati nice and light, absorption method not as good for this.

Try absorption with 1.5 ratio. I get better basmati with that than boiling.

Ug, if it’s anything like as bad as the Uncle Ben’s variant then you can keep it!

The only way to ‘enjoy’ those microwave bag rices is buried beneath equal amounts of very hot curry. Have bought a few to complement (wreck) a takeout when have been a few bob short on the night. It tastes and feels nothing like basmati. Often plops out in one piece in the same shape as the bag. Is complete crap.

Even then you’re left with the fact that they are a

1. Ridiculously expensive way to buy rice per kg
2. Thick plastic bag in the landfill every time you eat a portion of rice

File under the ‘1st world’ creating problems (usually because we ‘can’t be bothered’)

you’ve been done

They go softer – that’s medium water volume.

As for the spoon – well it’s my Sagaform chick hatching out of an egg spoon of course! Doesn’t everyone have one of these rare and collectable items?

Ridiculously expensive way to buy rice per kg

It’s not basmati, I was referring to wholemeal rice, and yes it’s expensive, but how much energy are you using to boil for 25 minutes?.

Can’t disagree with you on the plastic though.

Simmering water, swirl it with a whisk, crack egg into middle, lid on, heat off, 3 minutes

is the correct answer for one egg. but two? three? how would you do 3 separate eggs?

Agreed SEP, who eats one egg? I never swirl for this reason, no need unless yer eggs are shite.

is the correct answer for one egg. but two? three? how would you do 3 separate eggs?

I just put them in one after another. Did 2 earlier, 3 would have been fine.

The only way to ‘enjoy’ those microwave bag rices is buried beneath equal amounts of very hot curry. Have bought a few to complement (wreck) a takeout when have been a few bob short on the night. It tastes and feels nothing like basmati. Often plops out in one piece in the same shape as the bag. Is complete crap.

The Tilda Basmati one is absolutely fine.

That’s impressive Simondbarnes, until I read the rest of the thread I thought you’d cheated and used cling film, as they seem to be a teardrop shape.

Mine normally end up flat with the yolk fairly central.

(I’m still not totally convinced 😉 )

Clingfilm? People use clingfilm to cook eggs? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, some people appear to buy egg cookers!

I just put them in one after another. Did 2 earlier, 3 would have been fine.

and they stay as separate eggs??

and they stay as separate eggs??

Yup

This is getting as bad as the scrambled egg thread. Poor maligned eggs.

Used to be standard practice in a couple of pubs I worked in to use clingfilm for poached eggs.

Simon didn’t explicitly deny the use of clingfilm (or similar).

I still have my doubts 😉

Simon didn’t explicitly deny the use of clingfilm (or similar).

I had no idea it was a thing. How does it work?
Poaching eggs is simple.

I can vouch for Simon’s technique, sans cling film. It’s how they are supposed to be done.

is the correct answer for one egg. but two? three? how would you do 3 separate eggs?

You can poach eggs individually, put them into cold water or iced water, poach as many as you need then once you’re done pop them all back in the water to bring back upto temperature just before serving. If your poaching water is the correct temperature then they wont cook any further. That’s how they do it in restaurants. I find that you can do upto 3 eggs in one pan using the swirl method…pop one in the water, leave it for a few seconds to set, pop in a second, leave to set then pop in a third all while the water still has a swirl to it. You get a bit of egg white loss but they all come out perfectly poached and don’t combine into one large multi-yolk poached egg.

but how much energy are you using to boil for 25 minutes?.

Not sure to be perfectly honest. Depends on a number of variable factors. I steam a cup on the stove top, covered pan. Takes about 15-17 mins? Then subtract that from the energy it took to deliver your bag of steamed rice from the Big Rice Cooking Factory LTD, to your microwave. First they blanched it in hot water, then cooked in steam, then rinsed then oven-dehydrated it until the moisture content reached approximately twelve percent or less. Before being bagged for you to reheat/steam? So whatever percentage of that energy per your bag (tiny amount would imagine) and ? % ? of the vacuum -packing process added to your 2 mins in the microwave?

I suppose I could always cook my own rice in the microwave from scratch. That would be 15 mins (same time as stove, not sure how it takes you 25mins?) using much less energy. Good plan. Will trial.

https://steamykitchen.com/22048-how-to-cook-rice-microwave.html

Lol, I’ll take your word for it!

I’m backing up what @TiRed said 100% on this one.

When Mrs Binners bought an egg cooker, oh how I laughed. “WTF is that?” I snorted derisively, assuming it would be destined to gather dust at the back of a cupboard somewhere until going to a charity shop, unused, in a clearout in 3 years.

Well… I was dead wrong (as usual). They’re absolutely bloody brilliant things! Far from gathering dust, it gets used all the time. Considering they’re cheap as chips they’re well worth having. I think I know what I’m having for lunch now. Lovely soft boiled eggs with soldiers 🙂

We’ve got this one:

But that one on the Range that the OP linked to looks the same and a bargain for a tenner. Think we paid about the same for ours and it hasn’t half had some use

I used to hate these seemingly unnecessary kitchen gadgets that cause clutter but now I’m middle-aged the egg cooker, rice cooker, mini chopper and even popcorn makers have become indispensable.
Get one of these to go with the egg cooker

well, good and bad news…..

the good news is that i tried simons method of 3 eggs in swirling water, 20 secs or so apart. worked a treat, and even tho the water had stopped swirling by egg 3, and they all looked like they were stuck together in the middle, they werent. had no idea which was first in (so i could take it out first), but they were probably the best poachers ive done in a looooong time. on buttered sourdough too, bluddy hell they went down well.

i wish id taken a picture of them cut open, but just imagine 3 perfect runny yolks.

the bad news is, it probably means ive wasted my money on the life-changing egg cooker which came today, even tho they did come out pretty good.
schoolboy error in not reading the bumph before buying (can only do 2 eggs when im a 3 egg man) meant i had to do one separately in the pan (same swirling method but obviously easier with just one egg.
can you guess which one is the pan egg? 😆

and cut open….

so…… probably the most successful 2 days of poached-egg-making in my life, all there is left to say is nomnomnom.

be interesting to see how the boiled eggs go at the weekend.

Egg cooker arrived yesterday. Everyone’s happy with it in my house.