Re: Eggsplosions

They SHOULD work by surrounding the egg with a (porous) Faraday cage and having water inside so that thee egg cooks my boiling, not my microwave energy.

Exploding suggests the Faraday cage was not secure or there was no water.

Ultimately I found them fiddly and hard to time and went back to water in a saucepan on the Aga top.

No not in the instructions. Sounds as if I should have?

Wouldn't a Faraday Cage have to be metal so not to be used in a Microwave?

Poaching is normally done outside the shell, in some sort of silicone cup. There are egg boilers for producing hard or soft boiled eggs, my wife has one which seems to work OK. No need to prick. She likes it enough to have bought a four-egg version, which she hasn't tried yet.

Timing is something to learn, and of course varies slightly with the freshness of the egg.

Yes, but its solid metal - usually aluminium - with holes. I refects the power.

And if it has just come out of the fridge!>

During an idle time many years ago I thought I'd try cooking an egg in its shell in a microwave, despite warnings on various websites that it would be problematical. I tried it on 50% power for a few minutes, but when I broke the shell it was still very runny inside, and not properly cooked. So I gave another egg somewhat longer the next time. It exploded inside the microwave and blew the door open, breaking the catch which holds the door closed.

Fortunately there wasn't much mess outside the microwave, and that inside was easily cleaned off, as it wasn't burnt on like you'd get with a frying pan. The microwave wasn't otherwise damaged. I didn't bother trying to get the timing right again.

Problem is that runny yolk means cooking from the outside. Typically using steam

Now these poachers seem to rely on steam from the egg itself. I think that is utter crap.

But if I made a lot of poached eggs I'd get what me mum had back in the day, Something like this

boiled kettle water on the stove...

Mine brought it to the boil. tossed in a nob of butter and then a cracked egg

I'd still do the same.

But if I wanted poached eggs I'd use some of the massive store of Ex Waitrose pâté ramekins I have. in a deep shallow pan of water, which I also have... I am about to throw my air fryer out as bing essentially very little different from a AGA top oven, and thats due to get re-lit shortly..

Really, special purpose gadgets are s*it unless you use them every day...they just clutter up the place.

I remember I had - and still have - a 30 year old blender which my Ex scorned in favour of some NutriBollox or something. Which broke, so she bought another one. Same with the bloody Dysons.

Back with all Numatic gear now...

And a minute at a time is way too much. Try 10secs and wait 10 secs and check and repeat, at lest after the initial minute.

Thats how I make scrambled egg anyhow.

Tim W

The NutriBullets are actually built fairly well, American engineering rather than Chinese, but they need cleaning every few years. Various powdered stuff drops into the three motor switch triggers and eventually jams them. Ours is twelve years old now, and been cleaned once in that time.

We do also have a very old Kenwood two-whisk hand mixer, and one of the fancy new hand blenders, all get used for different jobs.

The usual advice is to always prick the yolk when microwaving an egg. Am very surprised if the instructions didn't mention this. On the other hand, if the gadget came from China then it might not be so unexpected.

This is not how the vast majority of microwave egg "poachers" work.

And does such a thing even exist for poached rather than boiled eggs (i.e. not in the shell)?

-- Richard