Foody Friday: Poached Egg

It's been a long time since I've published a foody friday post. My cousin in Cape Town has also adopted the phrase Foody Friday for her business making yummy scrummy foods to deliver or collect. If you live in Cape Town you should check out her facebook page. One of the things I miss about Cape Town is the abundance of delicious halaal food no matter which part of Cape Town you're in. But I digress. Bilaal is actually the inspiration for this post. Since baby, Bilaal has loved food. Of course he has his particular dislikes, but in general he has always loved eating. I've posted previously about his recent interest in cooking. Admittedly I have not had the patience nor the nerves to cultivate this interest. I sometimes watch Junior Masterchef and wonder how those little people became so proficient with knives and hot burning stoves! The few times I have let Bilaal cook I hovered beside him like shadow, didn't let him cut with a sharp knife, and held the pot steady when he needed to stir! I noticed the other day that he is very awkward when spreading margarine on bread and realised that he needs more opportunity to practice. So what does this have to do with poached egg? Well Bilaal loves egg, especially boiled egg. But when my parents were here he stayed over at their hotel and discovered poached egg and he was hooked. I said to him, 'does this look like a hotel? Please don't expect me to make you poached egg anytime soon!' My sister was also visiting at the time and shared with me the best trick for making poached egg and it's even quicker than any other way of having egg! Now Bilaal and I both have poached egg regularly and he can even make it himself. So I thought I'd share this method for any other egg lovers out there. Bare in mind I didn't write down the measurements and I'm not an exact measurements kinda cook but here it is:

Pour water into a tea cup about half full. Add approxinately 1 teaspoon vinegar (I use white but Im sure brown works just as well). Break an egg into the water being careful not to break the yolk. Place the tea cup in the microwave. Now here's where you have to test this method on your own microwave to see what time produces the perfect poaching to your liking. Bilaal and I both like our eggs medium poached, meaning the yolk is slighly soft but not completely runny. I have no idea what wattage my microwave is but it's probably about 1000W and I am able to achieve this result at 50 seconds. Then I just scoop the egg out of the cup with a spoon and add seasoning. I've made 2 at a time with this method and just nuked it for a few more seconds and it was fine.

Now I realise you do get microwave egg poachers with probably better results, but I already have a tea cup so I personally would rather spend my R200 plus rands on something else. Bilaal makes his own egg now and just the other day had it for lunch with chicken nuggets. Here is a picture of his 'plating up'