Borth 2008: Test Kitchen—The Countdown Begins
Monday, March 10th, 2008I’m twitching in my chair as I write this. I want to get going with a few more test recipes, but I’m not running the oven today and it’s still too early to think about baking anything.
As for tea-marbled quail’s eggs: I’ve got to be in the kitchen for that so I can keep an eye on them and since our kitchen in unheated and devoid of comforts such as chairs I’m writing this upstairs.
My first attempt at marbling eggs was not a success:
Verdict: I boiled this egg together with John’s sandwich egg and chilled both under ice cold water, for too long as it turns out. Plunging the eggs into cold water causes the albumin to contract and separate from the shell. That makes for easy peeling, but insufficient contact for the tea marinade to penetrate, hence the lack of marbling. I haven’t yet tried this with quails eggs; they could well behave differently.
The list so far: 26 spices and 25-odd bits of kit brought from my own kitchen, 116 different ingredients ranging from avocados to Worcester sauce (what, I haven’t got anything with ‘z’?) and about 80 recipes ranging from soup & dinner rolls to dips & canapés.
Not only don’t I know yet whether I’ll have access to the prep kitchen on the day before the shenanigans, I also wonder whether I’ll have any assistants, preferably with professional catering experience…
Denni