Other forms: poaching, poached, poaches
To poach is to cook gently in water just below boiling. Poach an egg, poached salmon, poach in stock.
The water must not boil, or the food breaks up — which is the whole technique and why poaching suits eggs and fish. There is a separate poach meaning to take game or staff illegally, which comes from a different word about trespassing. Note that the cooking sense comes from the French for a pocket, the shape of a poached egg.
1verbpoachTo cook gently in water just below boiling.
“Poach the eggs gently in simmering water until the whites are set.”
Patternpoach + noun (eggs, fish, fruit) · poached eggs · poach in + liquid · poaching liquid
2verbtakeTo take game or staff illegally.
“A rival company poached two of our best engineers last year.”
poach is a cooking method.
POACH → the yolk rides in a white COACH
Drop an egg into hot water and the white closes round the yolk like a little white coach carrying it home.
hooks ontocoach
Old French pocher means to put in a pocket, from poche, a pocket — the white forms a pocket round the yolk.
Old French
pocher
Middle English
pochen — to poach (eggs)
English, today
poach
From Middle English pochen (“to poach (eggs)”), from Old French pocher "to put (egg yolks) in pockets" (i.e. in bags formed by the whites), from Old French poche (“pocket”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA