[Sca-cooks] "Cooking Under Fire"

[Stefan li Rous]

Doc replied to me with:
> On May 7, 2005, at 1:32 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
> > One of the first contests was to cook an egg they were given. They
> > could use other ingredients they found in the kitchen. I probably
> > would have hard-boiled the egg and then cut it decoratively and
> > used bits of vegetation and such to make a pretty presentation. I'm
> > rather surprised that none of the contestants did this. Perhaps a
> > hard-boiled egg is too "simple". Other entries were eggs scrambled
> > with various items and omelets.
>
> Did they specify what kind of dish was to be made with the egg?

No. That is part of the competition.

> One
> of the first ideas that came to my mind was an little custard topped
> with snowe.

With one egg? ;-)

Actually adding an additional egg was allowed. One individual made a 
2-egg omelet and the judges said that since he found the egg that that 
was allowed. The rules only said you had to make something with the egg 
they gave you and that you could add other ingredients that you found 
in the kitchen. So thinking "outside the box" is apparently encouraged.

At this point though, I think it might be better for the contestants to 
play it safe. You don't get any extra credit for making the best item, 
you just don't want to be the expendable one. So, doing something risky 
and having it flop could be a problem. One individual got eliminated 
because his egg (I think he was soft boiling. coddling? it) didn't get 
cooked because someone moved his pot off the burner. But the judges 
seemed to mark him off more because he blamed the other cook than 
because it failed. They felt with only one pot to watch, he should have 
been watching his pot more carefully.

Given the single egg, most (all?) of the contestants proceeded to make 
an egg dish. We'll have to see whether some of them start thinking more 
creatively, as you did.

> Of course, that assumes that sugar, cream and milk would
> be available, and if a citrus fruit was around the zest could be used
> as flavoring.

For this contest, they also only had 1 hour in which to complete the 
task. But unless your custard has to cool for a long while, I don't 
think that would be a problem.

Why are you using the fruit zest for flavoring rather than the fruit 
juice? Or does the juice do something to the custard? Why not flavor 
with the juice and sprinkle the zest on top for color, as well as for 
flavor and a texture contrast? If you had it, and you probably wouldn't 
in this restaurant kitchen, I think some candied peel might be nice for 
this.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****