Tipnique of the week

Last weekend, as the egg poached that perched atop this hash,

I wondered, "Now, what website was it that eventually taught me to poach an egg?"
And it was more than one. I remember consulting both Alton Brown   and Smitten Kitchen  and poaching more than a few practice eggs that made wish to apologize to the chicken.
Of course I know that if our kitchen came equipped with any one of the myriad egg poachey apparatii available I wouldn't have had to learn how to do this, but this kitchen resents having to find space for a thing that does only one thing (I had to speak to it very sweetly and promise it a full cupboard clean out before it would make space for the waffle iron),
And mostly, I wanted to know how to poach an egg.
Here's the conglomeration of methods that eventually worked for me:

first, and I'll show you why this is important, salt and acidify the water.
It doesn't matter whether you do this before or after the water begins to simmer, but before the egg drops, drop some vinegar in the water. Better cooks than I argue about this; all I can do is show you what the poaching water looks like when I don't have any vinegar, but decide to make poached eggs anyway:

 No vinegar: There's an egg in there, upper left, under the clouds of egg bits.

and here's what it looks like when I remember the vinegar:

this is kinda freaky, and I cannot tell you why it works, nor can I explain why the eggs don't taste like they've been dosed in a vinaigrette. 
And I can't tell you how much vinegar. Some. A tablespoon or a little splash.
So, water have been acidified and come to a simmer, stir it until it's spinning fast enough to form a cool little vortex

like this. It doesn't have to be this big a vortex,
 but making a big vortex is really fun, so why not?

Houston, we have vortex.

 Oh! I forgot! While the water's heating, crack the egg into a little bowl or cup or saucer. I can't explain the vinegar, but I can explain this. The egg begins to cook the nanosecond it hits that hot water, so if you want a poached egg that's all together, it has to go in the water all together,

not dribbly like this.

so, stir up a vortex, reach for the egg, and wait a second for the vortex to flatten. When the water is still spinning, but has slowed down enough to be nearly flat on top, tip in the egg.

Houston, we have tippage.

I used to worry about how to tell if they're done, but then the eggs developed the very nice habit of detaching themselves from the bottom of the pan and floating when they're ready to come out. I can't explain this either. 

sitting on the bottom of the pool= not poached.
See how it spun in on itself? That the vortex action.
So cool (and a little hypnotic) to watch.

a little nudge with the spoon sets it floating= done or nearly done.

Many of you, at this point, are shaking your heads, which are much more efficient than my own, and reaching for your egg poaching pot. And I may get one of those one day, but for now, I think that next week I may just try to conquer eggs benedict.