Poached eggs and asparagus

I can’t take much of the credit for this because my boyfriend cooked the eggs using the tips from a TV programme he saw and I cooked the asparagus!  However, I decided to use lemon juice and not vinegar and it actually worked!  I thought, I should really write this down or else I’m going to forget how to do it next time.

The other thing to note is that if you use an electric oven then it’s very difficult to keep a steady temperature, my hobs go up to 6 and we had to hover between 3 and 4 to keep the bubbles going but avoiding a rolling boil.

The other thing to note is that your eggs should be as fresh as possible.  The less fresh they are, the more runny the egg white is and less likely it is to keep together rather than spread out all over the pan.  You can test fresh eggs by making sure they sink to the bottom of a glass of water, or just use ones you’ve bought recently.  If you’re fortunate to get them straight from the hen, all the better!

Serves 2

1 lemon

2 eggs

14 sticks of asparagus

1 tbsp olive oil

Salt and Pepper

1.  Juice the lemon and boil the kettle.
2. Heat one hob to a medium heat and place on there a medium saucepan with the boiled water in it.
3. Heat another hob to a medium -high heat and put on a griddle pan.  Drizzle over the olive oil.
4. Simmer the water so that there are bubbles are the bottom but surface is pretty much flat.  Keep it at that state by altering the hob dial as you go.
5. Put one egg, still in its shell, in the water and roll it around with a spoon for 10 seconds.  Put to one side on a plate and do the same with the other egg.
6. Add the asparagus to the griddle pan at this point, cook for 3-4 minutes turning halfway through.
7. Meanwhile, add the lemon juice to the water and stir gently.
8. Then crack the eggs into the water one at a time and simmer gently for 3 minutes.
9. Bring together any stray egg white with a metal spoon.
10. Arrange the asparagus onto plates.
11. When the time is up, place the eggs on top of the asparagus and season with a pinch of salt and pepper.