There are some things that just taste better when you’re feeling bad. It’s a personal thing, and for me, it changes depending on how badly I’m feeling. Carbs is the obvious stand-out winner in the comfort food category, probably because it helps absorb whatever’s upsetting you, but not all of us like the heavy feeling that pasta gives you.

For me, tomato soup has always been my go-to comfort food. Open a can, pour the contents of the can, plus a can’s worth of milk into a small pot, bring to a boil. Simple, straightforward, satisfying. Now that I’m not fourteen anymore, I don’t have to rely on a prepared can of soup concentrate to soothe my turgid, er… soul, but taking a couple of hours to make a whole pot of soup while feeling lousy isn’t always practical. Enter the egg.

Over the years, my appreciation for egg yolks developed from simply discarding overcooked, pasty, greenish egg yolk to indulging the unctuousness of a perfectly-cooked soft egg yolk set in a poached egg. I credit my father’s father with teaching me his method of poaching eggs when I was younger, which is probably when I gained my appreciation for soft, runny egg yolks. It has since become the comfort food of my adult years when I want to treat myself to a particularly decadent breakfast, dress up a salad with a light protein for lunch, or for those times when the idea of biting down on something makes my head, teeth and toes ache. Until a few weeks ago, while I could make the eggs more or less perfectly, I had to resort to a number of methods of poaching that left the whites, as well as the presentation (which to me matters), up to chance.

The cooking of a poached egg is, thanks to Heston Blumenthal, no longer a guessing game. If you spin a whirlpool, put salt or vinegar in the water, or use any of the other “surefire” method I used to use to poach an egg, I’m telling you to forget it. It’s never going to work as well as this one, simple fact: 80°C.

When your water reaches 80°C, lower your egg into the water. Let it cook for 6 minutes. Watch the temperature while it’s cooking. That’s it. The result is friction-less whites with a velvety, rich yolk that coats toast, vegetables (especially asparagus) or rice with a thick, savory, glossy richness.

Needless to say, this means you need to have a thermometer to measure the temperature of the water. 80°C is 176°F, so sticking your fingers in the water is out of the question. I have an infrared one which is like a little gun you aim at the water. If you don’t have one, get one. In fact you should have several, including an instant read probe for meats, and a candy thermometer for sugar if you make confections in your kitchen. Your mother may not have had one in her kitchen, but she also didn’t have the Internet, either. The same goes for a kitchen scale.

Yes, cooking is an art. But like many art forms, there are mechanics that help transform your vision into a reality. Rembrandt didn’t “wing it” when he mixed colors (did you really think he walked into a store??), he had specific formulas to ensure that they would last.

Comfort food is supposed to be just that: comforting. By understanding and controlling elements  — like heat — in your cooking, you can expect consistent results. And that is comforting.

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