The perfect poached egg. Tender whites around a warm liquid yolk that oozes out like gold when you cut into it. They're an essential part of exbenedicts, they can turn any salad into a meal or any vegetable into brunch. The problem is they're really tough to make right. So you've probably read all the tricks and know all the secrets. Add vinegar to your water. Add salt to your water. Don't add salt to your water. Stir a vortex into the water. Wrap your eggs in plastic wrap. And guess what? None of them really work. After years of testing, I've only come across one method that works every single time. And all it requires are two things. The first is a really fresh egg. Fresh eggs have tighter whites and yolks that help them retain their shape better as they cook. There are two ways to tell how fresh an egg is. The first is to check something called the Julian date. As long as it's packed in the US, every carton of eggs has a number between 0, 0, 0 and 3.65 on it. And that number corresponds to the damn which the egg was cleaned and packed. So a number of 0, 0, 0 would mean January 1st, 0, 0, 3 would mean January 4th and so on. All you really need to know is that the higher the number, the fresher the egg. You can also tell how fresh an egg is by carefully putting it into a cup of water. As an egg ages, the air pocket in the fat end is going to get bigger and bigger, which will make the egg stand upright or sometimes even float. A really fresh egg will sink and lie flat on its back like this. Once you've got your fresh egg, the second tool you need is something that I saw first suggested by British chef, Pest and Blumenthal, a fine mesh strainer. You see, no matter how fresh your eggs are, there's always going to be some amount of liquid white. It's this excess white that causes mischraping eggs. You know, there's really ugly ones with the wispy white floaters that completely ruin your brunch. To get rid of them, we're going to transfer our eggs to a fine mesh strainer and gently swirl it around until all the excess white is drained away. What you're left with is a nice, tight egg. Even better is that the strainer is actually the ideal tool for lowering the egg into the water. What I've got here is a pot of water at 180 degrees Fahrenheit, which is just about the temperature that the water is quivering but not quite simmering yet. All I'm going to do is gently lower the strainer with the egg into the water, move it back and forth a little bit to make sure the egg isn't stuck, and then carefully roll the egg out. Just like a kid, it's these early formative stages of a poached egg's life that are going to determine how it turns out in the end. Using a round bottom strainer and this rolling motion is going to help ensure that you get a nice, tight poached egg that's, well, that's egg-shaped. If you want to cook multiple eggs, just make sure that you have them cracked into separate dishes and ready to go. Once they're in the water, your only job is to keep them moving around, flipping them from time to time with a slotted spoon, so that they cook evenly. After about three and a half to four minutes, this is what you've got. You can even cook them ahead of time and store them submerged in cold water in the fridge for up to a few days. To reheat them, just transfer them to a bowl of hot water for a few minutes just before serving. Food lips, anyhow.