Playing with My Food - Cling Wrap Poached Egg

Our cat has a strict routine.  Every morning @ approximately 5:56am Sheldon would reach his claws under the blankets & "play tag" with my toes.  After being threatened to get kicked off (literally) the bed a couple of times,  Sheldon would proceed up to my pillow where he'd settle down comfortably next to my head & begin to munch on my scalp/hair.  On a work day my alarm goes off @ 6:00am so it's not usually such a big deal; but on the weekends when I don't have an alarm, it's really annoying.  So what does Sheldon's morning ritual have to do with what I'm writing about?  I'm getting to it.

This past Saturday morning Sheldon gave me the usual morning call & after giving him breakfast, I was desperately trying to fall back asleep.  You see, it was GRE day & for me, standardized testing and sleep deprivation just don't mix.  One tried & true way to get me to quickly fall asleep is to have me watch a show - any show - while in a comfy position (e.g. in bed).  So I picked up my phone, opened up Netflix, & began browsing for something to watch.  As I scrolled, I stumbled upon a PBS show called The Mind of a Chef featuring chef David Chang of the Momofuku empire. Did I mention the show is produced by Anthony Bourdain?  Anyway, the plan was to watch this show for 10-20 minutes, fall asleep, & go on with my day.  I finished the first episode (~20 minutes); then I watched the second episode; then I woke Russell up & we watched the 3rd episode; then we got out of bed & watched more episodes until it was time for me to leave to take the GRE. To say I was hooked on the show is a little bit of an understatement.

The GRE went well enough & the rest of Saturday passed with Russell & I stuffing our faces with oysters before heading home to watch more episodes of Mind of a Chef.  This pattern of "obsessive viewing" continued for parts of Sunday when all of a sudden Russell decided he was going to try out one of the cooking techniques featured in the show; the one where David Chang poaches eggs in little packets made of cling wrap.

The process is simple...
     Put a good-sized piece of cling wrap over a small bowl or ramekin
     Spray the cling wrap with a little bit of non-stick spray & sprinkle on some salt & pepper
     Crack the egg into the cling wrap & bring up the sides, making sure to remove all the free air
     Take a piece of string or a strip of cling wrap& tie off the packet.
     Place the packet into barely boiling water & let it cook for 4 minutes
     Careful unwrap the packet & remove the cling wrap from the egg

When we unveiled the egg it looked a lot like a ball of fresh mozzarella cheese but once we cut into it, the gooey yolk started to run out just like a regular poached egg.  According to other recipes for cling wrap poached egg, you can use any kind of oil & seasoning to flavor the egg before it is cooked.  This technique for poaching eggs is so quick & simple compared to the traditional methods of making a vortex or adding vinegar to the water.  Before I knew about this technique, my eggs would either get stuck at the bottom of the pot or half of the egg white would float off in little chunks.

Later on in the show chef Wylie Dufresne (wd~50) demonstrates his interpretation of Eggs Benedict & he remarks that Eggs Benedict is a dish made with eggs topped with more eggs (Hollandaise sauce is made with egg yolks).  This was a total lightbulb moment for me!  It's so obvious I can't believe I had never seen it like that before.  I repeated this statement to Russell & he said the idea of egg-on-egg is too "gratuitous." To simply matters, we came up with a brilliant idea: to replace the egg yolk with Hollandaise sauce.  Now we just have to experiment until we can get it done.