Sous Vide Poached Eggs

We do polenta with poached eggs, the old fashioned way, at my restaurant. Can eggs be cooked before service and held at a temperature where they are ready when you need them? Will the textures change if you hold them in a lower temperature bath for too long?

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Johan_Edstrom_5586

Holding them is where you start getting strange textures, prepping, chilling and re-heating works and can even improve texture.

You can also rest them at 130 pretty much long time..

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/10/sous-vide-101-all-about-eggs.html

But then Modernist Cuisine has as noted there some different advice. (Eggs are complicated

Tim_Sutherland_52834

One option is to have eggs dropped at different times. Drop eggs 35mins before service so you will have eggs ready at start of service. Hold for as long as you have an acceptable texture (this will require experimentation). Drop eggs ~40 mins before the first lot are unacceptable. Remove old eggs and repeat. This will require timing on the line during service, which could easily be missed on a busy night.

Jack_Mayer_85396

I just read the article on Serious Eats that @Johan cited and thought it a pretty thorough explanation.

Andrew_Pierce_16194

Thanks for the link. That was a great article. I did some experimenting and got the best results by cooking them at 145 F for about 50 minutes. If you cook a big batch the day before or in the morning, you can just portion the cooked and cooled eggs into a bag of ten or so eggs. They only take about ten minutes to come back to temp in a bath of 130 F, and they hold fine for a few hours. Just add another portion when the first one starts getting low. With the yolks cooked to 145 F, the whites aren't as set as you want for a classic poached egg. The article mentioned just cracking the sous vide eggs and putting them in poaching water for just a minute to set the whites. Doing it that way gives your eggs a really nice shape and consistent yolks every time, as well as a quicker pick up time during service. Thanks again guys.