There are 473,000 recipes to poach an egg. This is the only one you'll ever need.

And if you are eschewing toast – probably – and Rice Krispies – I certainly hope so, a salad is a wonderful thing to have instead with your eggs, or your hummus, or some cannellini beans.

Like practically the whole country, I am terribly sad about the death of Michael Mosely. His kind, funny, Just One Thing podcast was such a warm and gentle voice in my head.     And how could I not love someone who told me it was better for me to walk downstairs rather than up them – with proper science to back up the fabulous news. Sadly, the podcast didn’t come with lift-installation so I still have to walk up all the stairs to my 2nd floor flat in order to walk down them again.  Am hoping that will be good for me too, especially as I’m usually carrying both bike panniers stuffed to the gunnels with vegetables.   

But there will be no more episodes to tell me so – or about anything else.   So I’ve  decided that he would have quite definitely said that lugging your 10-a-day up many flights of stairs is the very, very best thing you can do; probably worth moving house so you get the chance…  And I’ve been thinking about what other just-one-things would make life better… healthier… more delicious… and the cooking easier.

And what immediately came up was breakfast salads and poached eggs.

Cook with the Diva zoom-along

But before I get onto that, next Wednesday, 19th June at 6.00pm BST,  I am running my first zoom cooking session for paid subscribers.  We will be making 20-second mayonnaise and lentils with gremolata and pomegranate seeds. You are welcome to cook along with me or just watch (and marvel, obviously). Full ingredient list – a short one –will be sent to all.

If you would like to do it, but can’t at this short notice, I can repeat it – or move it – to Wednesday 26th June. For my lovely American, Canadian and Antipodean subscribers, please let me know if there’s a good window of time in British Summer Time that would enable you to join without losing your job or getting up in the middle of the night.

I have things to say about poached eggs.

They are, in my opinion (no, nothing humble about it)  the oeuf de la oeuf of eggs. There are also 473,000 definitive ways of cooking them perfectly. They are usually complicated and require precision timing. Anxiety is recommended but not obligatory.

Here are two eggs cooked using MY definitively brilliant method. They are both from the same egg box, cooked at the same time in the same pan, and one is perfect, and the other is a slightly overcooked mess.

The conclusion: eggs are not to be trusted.  That’s why the world is sinking under the weight of so many perfect egg-poaching methods.

But there are many variables that change their poach-ability, starting with how fresh they are: everyone agrees that the eggs need to be fresh, but unless you have stood over the hen and watched it being laid, you can’t be exactly sure how long ago that was. I imagine the breed of hen affects things – the white ones with deep yellow yolks that I get from Neals Yard are particularly good for poaching – and what and how much they’ve eaten, none of which even the farmer can be sure about.

So today’s just-one-thing is to enjoy your poached eggs however they turn out.

This is my definitive, probably-will-work-most of -the-time  method. It may not be perfect, but is extremely easy. And anxiety is forbidden.

1. Heat the water to the sort of boil where it knows it should be going full tilt, but can’t quite be  bothered.

2. If you have time and inclination, break each egg (you will obviously want two) into two separate mugs – you can break them straight into the water, it’s just a tiny bit riskier.*

3. Lower the eggs in with or without  aplomb,** and turn down the heat. You could put a timer on for two minutes or (my preferred method) stand over them, in a not especially attentive way until they start to look done.  You can lift them out with a slotted spoon to check, and put them back if there is still too much wobble in them (they need to have some) or the white isn’t quite cooked enough.

Here are 4 eggs – 2 aplombed, and 2 carefully eased in; 2 freehand and 2 broken into a mug first. Aplombing  seems to have won (the two on the left), but breaking the egg into a mug (the top two) hasn’t made much difference. The least successful (bottom right) was free-hand, gently lowered. Although it was still delicious. Yes, I did eat them all for breakfast

*Although we are talking about a mildly spoiled breakfast, not breaking the bank of England. Perspective is required.

** Aplomb requires a bit of height and a devil-may-care attitude; a small turn of speed perhaps,  but should not entail any actual flinging.

Breakfast salads

My thing for breakfast salads started when I was about four, and I discovered that if the tomato that appeared on my plate beside the fried egg and rasher of bacon was raw, I didn’t have my breakfast ruined by having to eat the watery insipidness of an undercooked under-salted tomato.

And when I was a bit older, I discovered that was even nicer if I chopped it up and added salt and pepper.  No olive oil; that was reserved for removing earwax.  It was particularly good with scrambled egg.

I mean the tomato salad.

In case you are wondering, breakfast always, always involved eggs. I think my mother considered them the last bastion against communism.        I don’t share her politics, but I still remember finding an article about eggs being bad for you (I have a very faint memory that my mother had taped it to the back of the loo door) and thinking that it couldn’t possible be true. Which of course it wasn’t. But it carried on being thought so for long enough for a lot of people to ditch their eggs in favour of Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes.

Just-one-thing: if a bit of news about real food sounds bonkers, it probably is.

More Just-one-thing: hurl your Rice Krispies into the pit of despair where they belong.

Mega Just-one-thing: NEVER eat something that uses a K where a C should be on the label.

Back to breakfast salads:

Breakfast salads have to be simple and quick to make. So I start with the fact that almost everything tastes delicious with nothing more than salt and olive oil. If I have herbs right in front of me, I use them.  If your mornings are always rushed, make enough in advance for several days.

My standard 4-year-old’s tomato salad is still regularly sharing the table with my cappuccino – a handful of cherry tomatoes, roughly chopped up, and a good few grindings of salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil – and it’s really good, just like that. Adding a few shavings of red onion or a finely sliced spring onion is an excellent addition. Yes, I do use a mandolin, even pre-coffee, but I would not if I was a violinist in the LSO.

But from there we  head towards  the realms of a middle eastern chopped salads, and they are excellent realms to make your breakfast delicious and your microbiome very happy.

But before we get quite that exciting, today’s breakfast involved cherry tomatoes, red onion, a bit of cucumber, chopped lime, quarter of an avocado, pomegranate seeds, chilli (not too much) and some dill, plus plenty of salt and pepper, and olive oil.

A few days ago, I used tomatoes, onion, lemon, strawberries, chilli, and I added some leftover honey beans that were sitting in my fridge.  As there were strawberries, I added a splash of balsamic.

East Street Market Breakfast Salad

This is a lovely fresh salad to eat in the morning.   I can’t have too many mangos in my life, and I am lucky enough to live near East Street market in South East London, where not only are they   fabulous*, but are often incredibly cheap. It is out of gratitude to have such a delight so near at hand that I have named this salad after it.

*Don’t get me started on the subject of supermarket mangos: do they actually put something to stop them ever getting sweet and ripe?

The juices of the vegetables and fruit combine to make their own dressing,  with or without a drizzle of olive oil. It keeps really well in the fridge so I usually make a batch. Use as much or as little of each ingredient as you feel like or have in your fridge. But do not be too bold with the chilli. If you don’t have something on the list, leave it out, or use something you do have. Chop up a bit of whole lemon if you have no kumquats.

• cherry tomatoes

•   red pepper

• red onion

• mango

•   kumquats

• green or red chilli – optional

•   thyme

• olive oil

• salt and pepper

1. Dice the tomatoes, pepper, onion, and mango.

2. Thinly slice the kumquats and chilli.

3. Finely chop the thyme. If the stem is woody, strip off the leaves first.

4. Mix it all together adding a good pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper.

Diva Notes

Herbs

Mint or basil would also work well in this salad. I chose thyme because a friend had given me a lovely terracotta potful for my birthday and it was sitting in my kitchen, unlike the mint, which was down three flights of stairs in our lovely communal garden.

Middle Eastern Chopped Salad

In many parts of the Middle East, a version of this salad is eaten every day. I think that’s a fantastic idea for here too. It keeps very well in the fridge

Serves 2 – 4

• 4 tomatoes or 2 large handfuls of cherry tomatoes, finely diced

• 1 cucumber, finely diced

• 1 red or yellow pepper, finely diced

• 1 nectarine (optional), finely diced

• 1 salad onion, very finely diced

• 1 fresh chilli (optional), very finely diced

• Parsley, mint, or basil, finely chopped

• Half a lemon, finely diced

• Pomegranate seeds

• Olive oil

• Salt and pepper

Mix it all up really well, adding as much or as little olive oil as you want.

Diva Notes

You can make it in a food processor using the pulse button. It is slightly more like a salsa, but it is MUCH quicker and very good.