I have never been a fan of poached eggs. My mother used to make them. She used tuna fish cans with the tops and bottoms removed as the molds, but her eggs were always runny. I don’t like runny whites. Even the thought of it makes me shiver! I had poached eggs in NYC one morning as an adult as a kind of Florentine. They were served over English muffins with spinach and ham and a cheese sauce. They were also too runny and wiggly so I was turned off yet again.  Just recently in the Bahamas, our hotel breakfast buffet had poached eggs on English muffins with a thin slice of ham and a tiny bit of cream sauce. These eggs were perfectly cooked – solid whites and runny yolks. It was a revelation!

So when I saw Martha had a section on poached eggs in March Everyday Food I knew I would have to give it a try. This was my first time poaching eggs, and I could see why my mom used tuna cans! The eggs did not stay together very well. I made three and one was perfect and two were not even close, with the whites sort of floating off in the pan.

Putting a poached egg on top of a salad seemed a bit odd, but I was willing to go for  – after all a hard boiled egg is good in a salad. I didn’t have bleu cheese, so I used feta but I did have bleu cheese dressing so I used that. I thought this salad was quite good, but it had a lot of protein – chicken, bacon and egg. I think I would skip the chicken next time since it was almost too much. I did like the egg with the salad and am surprised that I did.