I wonder if you feel the same way I do about eggs: since I was a kid, I’ve loved eating any kind of egg with a runny center, whether it’s poached, overeasy, or softboiled, purely for the pleasure of dipping my bread in the oozing yolk that’s been sprinkled generously with salt.
By the time I got around to making my own eggs and experimenting with poached eggs on meals, I encountered a problem almost immediately: poached eggs were a lot harder to make than I ever imagined. I always assumed that eggs were the easiest thing to master, but I slowly realized they’re actually one of the hardest. When I was taking classes at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, one of the chefs joked that the hardest dish for a chef to master is scrambled eggs. Now I get it.