Poaching

Don’t confuse poaching with boiling. Foods are rarely boiled—green vegetables are the exception—but meats and seafood are often poached in liquid that may approach a simmer but never boil. When we make broth, we poach meat, chicken, fish, or bones in water. If the water is allowed to boil, the churning action causes fat and proteins to emulsify into a cloudy, greasy mess. Gentle poaching, on the other hand, allows fats and proteins to accumulate on top of the broth, where we can skim them off with a ladle, or we can refrigerate the broth and wait for them to congeal and then lift them off, all at once, with a spoon.