This section is from the book "The White House Cook Book", by Hugo Ziemann, F. L Gillette. Also available from Amazon: The White House Cook Book.
Have one quart of boiling water and one tablespoonful of salt in a frying pan. Break the eggs, one by one, into a saucer, and slide carefully into the salted water. Dash with a spoon a little water over the egg, to keep the top white.
The beauty of a poached egg is for the yolk to be seen blushing through the white, which should only be just sufficiently hardened to form a transparent veil for the egg.
Cook until the white is firm, and lift out with a griddle cake turner and place on toasted bread. Serve immediately.
A tablespoonful of vinegar put into the water keeps the eggs from spreading.
Open gem rings are nice placed in the water and an egg dropped into each ring.
Put a quart of hot water, a tablespoonful of vinegar and a tea-spoonful of salt into a frying pan, and break each egg separately into a saucer; slip the egg carefully into the hot water, simmer three or four minutes until the white is set, then with a skimmer lift them out into a hot dish. Empty the pan of its contents, put in half a cup of cream, or rich milk; if milk, a large spoonful of butter; pepper and salt to taste, thicken with a very little cornstarch; let it boil up once, and turn it over the dish of poached eggs. It can be served on toast or without.
It is a better plan to warm the cream in butter in a separate dish, that the eggs may not have to stand.
 
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