How to poach an egg without vinegar?
Heston Blumenthal has brought his unique scientific approach to bear on this recently. The main pointers for a perfect poached egg are as follows:


The egg must be fresh. A fresh egg has a thicker, more gel-like albumen. As it gets older, this becomes watery, and so just disperses throughout the water when you add it. To test if your egg is fresh, place it in a jug of cold water. If it floats, it's not fresh - the egg has had time to absorb air through its shell. A fresh egg sinks and stays sunk.
The water temperature should be 80ºC/176ºF exactly. You can measure this with a sugar or probe thermometer. The egg should be at room temperature.
The egg should not come into contact with direct heat, so put a plate or small bowl on the bottom of the pan, bottom up.


Once the water (in a medium to large saucepan) is up to temperature, carefully add the fresh egg and cook for 4 minutes exactly (for a large egg of the domestic chicken, Gallus gallus domesticus). Drain and serve - the white should be set but not rubbery (a drawback of using vinegar) and the yolk should be creamy and rich.