Poached eggs at altitude?

Question

I recently signed up for America's Test Kitchen Cooking School and followed their directions for poaching eggs. I brought my water w/ vinegar & salt to a light simmer, removed it from the heat, and gently added the raw eggs at the same time. I covered and left it for 5 minutes, saw they were a bit feathery, gave them an extra minute before removing them, and found that they were still feathery and a bit undercooked.

My guess is that they need more time or persistent heat since I'm at higher altitude (mile high in Colorado), but I'm not sure. Should I keep the heat under the pan? Should I keep the eggs in longer? Maybe both?

Answer 1

I live up in the mountains. Two things I do not do are: a) remove food from heat and expect it to still cook properly, because boiling points are lower at higher altitudes; and b) use the cited time in the recipe. I always add time, because the lower boiling point means more cooking time is necessary. Also, try not to open the lid of the pot unless you absolutely have to. The lid provides some added internal pressure for the pot, which helps with cooking, and keeping the lid on as much as possible provides steady heat. Other than that, I have no suggestions.

Answer 2

I live at 5700 feet in Colorado and the method OP describes makes perfectly cooked poached eggs: bring water (enough to cover both eggs) in a saucepan plus a teaspoon of salt, and teaspoon of vinegar to boil, then add fresh-cracked eggs that were cracked into a ramekin first, cover, turn off heat, and let sit 5 minutes. Perfectly done whites and runny yolks.

Answer 3

I live at 5,000' elevation. I need to consider the time involved when cooking in water.

Your question reminded me I have not made poached eggs for many years. So I made a couple. Farm fresh eggs, 2~3 days from chicken. High simmer, not boiling. Added a scant teaspoon Kosher salt, 1.5" of RO water in 12" SS skillet. 6 minutes with flame on, removed eggs.

Soft whites, not leathery. Yolk was cooked, but very fluid. My sweet wife wanted another minute added. She likes a more well done poach.

Answer 4

Water boils at a lower temperature at higher altitudes. At a mile high, the boiling point is ~202 °F, as opposed to 212 °F at sea level. (The decrease in BP is due to lower air pressure.). But since poached eggs aren't brought to the boiling point, this will not affect the cooking temperature.

Water does evaporate faster at higher altitude/lower pressure. This is one of the effects that high-altitude recipes are intended to counteract. Keeping the lid on is a good idea - although the weight of a lid is not enough to increase gas pressure inside the pot, it does help return water vapor to the liquid state, slowing evaporative cooling, and perhaps making it easier to maintain a consistent poaching temperature (~180 °F is common but not universal).

A remedy for the featheriness that is well known is to gently strain the egg in a fine mesh strainer before transferring into the pot. This removes the thin, watery portion of the white. Also, you could select higher quality eggs - newer eggs, from younger, healthier chickens tend to have less watery albumen.