Nope. But there’s a good reason to salt your water:
it makes your eggs tastier. Just like pasta or potatoes,
eggs absorb salt from the water as they cook,
leading to a more evenly seasoned finished product.
Q: Why are poached eggs so freaking delicious?
This is a question that modern science has yet to
answer and may well never get around to. Some
scientists remark that the lack of progress on this
particular front is due to the fact that other scientists
don’t spend the time to make and enjoy a good
breakfast.
Q: Should I agitate my eggs as they cook, or swirl
the water as I add them, as some books suggest?
The strainer-to-pan technique completely eliminates
the need to swirl the water before you add the eggs,
a trick designed to help the eggs keep a nice, even
torpedo shape. What you do want to do is to make
sure the eggs move around after they’ve started to
set up. If you cook your eggs with no motion at all,
they will end up resembling fried eggs in shape, with
flat bottoms and a pronounced dome around the
yolks. You also run the risk of overcooking the
bottoms and toughening them, as they are in direct
contact with the hot bottom of the pan. By moving
them around in the water and gently flipping them,
you get more even cooking and a more even shape. I
use a wooden spoon to flip them with the water
currents, rather than trying to pick them up with the