Vegan Poached Eggs
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that these eggs are life-changing! Pre-vegan days, I used to love poached egg on toast. It's been a long time since I've eaten one, however, and recently I found myself craving a vegan version. After a lot of researching and experimenting, I finally came up with a recipe that really hit the mark and I've been a bit obsessed with eating them ever since!
They really do taste like the real deal; the kala namak makes for a convincingly eggy taste and there's something deeply satisfying about cutting into the outer layer and watching the 'yoke' drizzle out...yum!
I love serving them on a slice of my homemade, gluten free, flour free, nut and seed bread (you can find the recipe here), along with a handful of rocket and some smoked tempeh. It makes such a hearty, delicious, satisfying breakfast. Often, I'll spread guacamole on slices of nut and seed bread before adding the egg, then sprinkle toasted chickpeas over the plate. Sometimes we'll eat them as part of an evening meal, served on ramen or with some homemade fries and beans. I even use them to make home made shakshuka (recipe here).
They're easier to make than you might think, and once you get used to assembling them you can conjure them up quite quickly. This recipe makes six eggs, but if you don't need six you can simply store them in the fridge and re-heat another time.
I was also delighted to find that I could use almost the exact same ingredients to create deliciously creamy scrambled egg. You can find the recipe for that here.
So here goes:
First, make the yolk:
Take a 5cm long piece of carrot (from the thickest part), peel and chop it into thin slices.
Place the carrot slices into a small pan filled with ½ cup of boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.
Transfer the carrots and water into a vitamix or blender and blend until the carrots are totally liquified (you could also use a hand held blender).
Put this orange liquid into a small pan and add:
1 tbs nutritional yeast
2 tsp vegan butter (I use my own homemade butter, you can find the recipe here)
1 tsp corn flour
1 tsp yellow mustard
¼ tsp vegetable stock powder
¼ tsp kala namak*
Gently heat, stirring continuously, until it reaches a thick consistency, then remove from the heat.
Next, make the egg white:
Put the following ingredients into a vitamix or food processor:
500g of extra firm organic tofu
2 tbsp of corn flour
2 tsp of colourless agar agar powder
½ tsp kala namak*
Blend until totally smooth.
Then assemble the eggs:
Put 6 silicone poached egg pods in a muffin tray, to keep them stable.**
Place 2 heaped teaspoons of the white mixture into each silicone pod, so that they look like this:
Spread the mixture up the sides a little and create a well in the middle of each one.
Carefully spoon the yolk mixture into each well, so that each pod has the same amount. They should then look like this:
The yolks then need to be completely covered with the remaining white mixture. However, if you simply spoon this on top of the yolks, the yolks will spill out over the sides. So add small mounds of the white mixture around the edges of the yolks, like this:
Then smooth these edges inwards until they meet in the middle and totally cover the yolks, so that they look like this:
Now poach the eggs:
Half fill a medium size pan with water and bring to the boil.
Carefully place the poaching pods into the pan (I do this 3 at a time).
Boil for 12 minutes.
Don't worry if the boiling water covers the eggs, you can simply pour it off afterwards. In fact, I think it's good if it does because it helps to poach the top of the eggs.
Carefully remove the pods from the water with a slotted serving spoon and put each pod back into the muffin tray. When the egg has cooled down a little bit, you can turn it out onto your plate!
Enjoy!
Time Saving Tips:
If you're short on time, you can use a pinch of turmeric (to add colour) instead of using a carrot. I prefer using a carrot as it lends an earthy, deep flavour, but the recipe still works well with turmeric. If you use turmeric, however, you'll need to use slightly less water, to account for the water which gets evaporated while boiling the carrot.
If you're cooking these eggs often, or in bulk, it's handy to make a batch of yoke in advance and freeze it in small sized ice cube trays. I usually make six times the amount of yoke and divide it between 2 trays, making 48 small cubes. Then, when it comes to making the eggs, I simply make the egg white, which is quick and simple to do, place 2 heaped tablespoons of mixture into each poaching pod, place a frozen yolk cube in it, cover with another tablespoon of egg white, then poach as usual. It saves a lot of time.
*Kala namak is also known as black salt, which is a bit misleading as it's actually pink! It's very cheap to buy and is essential to this recipe as it really adds that sulphurous, eggy taste. However, if you'd prefer your eggs not to taste too eggy, simply reduce the amount of kala namak you use.
**Before I bought the silicone poaching pods, from Lakeland, I simply used cling film. I cut large squares and placed them over the cups of a muffin tray. I then assembled the eggs, as described, pulled up the sides of the cling film, twisting it at the top, and lifted the eggs out by these twisted bits to place them in the boiling water. I used cling film that was BPA free and recyclable, but I still wasn't comfortable with the idea, so I was really happy to find poaching pods. I don't love using silicone either, but it's definitely preferable to cling film!