Michelin-star chef shares 'better way' to poach eggs without using vinegar

A top chef has shared his foolproof way of cooking a perfect poached egg – and there’s not a drop of vinegar in sight.

Paul Foster is the owner of the relaxed fine dining restaurant Salt – which earned Stratford-upon-Avon’s first ever Michelin star and has been awarded 3 AA rosettes since its opening in 2017.

And now Paul has shared some of his expertise with his fans, revealing his go-to method for poaching eggs. In a video shared on TikTok, he shares: “I was shown, when I was a young chef, to use vinegar but I’ve learned a better way. This is the better way.”

And it couldn’t be simpler – “You just need a pan with some water, with no vinegar in it. Just a little bit of salt.”

The first step is to crack an egg into a sieve to remove any watery bits from the white. Bring a pan of water the the boil, and then turn it down before giving it a stir – “You don’t need to whisk it and create a vortex. The stir just helps it to move so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan,” according to Paul.

Paul then carefully places the egg into the nearly boiling water, and sets a timer for two minutes. While the chef acknowledges the egg won’t be fully cooked in that time, he prefers to “check it before”.

“See how the water is not boiling. There’s no vinegar in there, it’s not gone all scummy and it won’t taste like c**p.”

After his egg has been in for two minutes, Paul checks it and decides it needs another 30 seconds in the bubbling water, warning: “Don’t be tempted to turn it up and start boiling it.”

When he finally removes the egg from the water, he shakes off any extra droplets on a piece of kitchen roll to help stop water transferring onto toast and making it soggy.

“That is a perfectly cooked runny yolk, and a nice soft white,” he concludes. “You can’t get better than that.”

It comes after experts surprised foodies with the news that you can actually freeze your eggs. According to the Egg Info website , they can be frozen for up to a year, although it is recommended to use them within four months for freshness.

There are some important rules to follow, however, which you can see here. And it’s important to only freeze eggs which are fresh and in date; all British Lion Eggs are labelled with a best-before date stamp on each individual egg shell.

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