I have a day off today after a busy weekend. So I slept in a little, did 45 minutes of cardio and strength training, and then decided today was going to be the day I learned how to poach eggs, because I had a real hankering.

Poaching eggs is one of those notoriously tricky things to do, so I looked up a few different instructionals before attempting it. They all pretty much said that it was really important to have fresh eggs. But, well, I had the eggs I had, and they’ve been in the fridge for about a week and goodness knows how long on the shelf in the grocery store before that.

I did however follow the other tips I found:

• Bring the water to a simmer, not a boil
• Put a splash of vinegar in the water and no salt
• Swirl the water around a little so it’s like a whirlpool when you put the egg in
• Crack the egg into a measuring cup and lower the cup gently into the water

As you can see from my photos they’re not exactly perfectly poached, but they tasted great (no hint of vinegar flavour) and for a first attempt I’m pretty happy with them.

I ate them over spinach, avocado and hot smoked salmon, with a bit of herb salt and black pepper.

Ingredients (serves 1):

2 eggs
Approx 50 gr fresh spinach
1/2 avocado
Approx 100 gr hot smoked salmon

Method:

Follow the tips above to poach your eggs. I added just a splash of rice vinegar to the water. I had each egg in a separate measuring cup and lowered them into the water just after each other. To begin with it looked like all I was going to get was stringy egg whites, but it turned out OK. I let them simmer for about 4 minutes, but would probably do a little less next time to get that really runny yolk.

I tore my spinach leaves a little and put them in a colander over the sink. Once the eggs were done cooking, I poured them and the water over the spinach in the colander, so it wilted a little.

I then scooped out the eggs and squeezed the spinach.

I put the spinach on the plate, then arranged slices of avocado on top and tore the hot smoked salmon to pieces with my fingers, and placed the poached eggs on top of that. Served with a little herb salt and black pepper.

Verdict: De-li-cious! Eggs, spinach and salmon is always a good combo in my book, and avocado goes well with almost anything. I’m also kind of in love with hot smoked salmon lately. It’s so tasty and it has a totally different texture than regular smoked salmon. If you want to be extravagant this would also go really well with hollandaise.

Nutrition:

MFP data: 490 kcal / 8 g carbs / 33 g fat / 41 g protein. Plenty of (healthy) fat and protein in this one, perfect for a low carb diet.

Fullness factor: medium to high. I guess after exercise I wouldn’t mind some more carbs, but this was still pretty satisfying. And you can easily add some toast or something if low carb is not your jam.