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Scrambled Egg Week 4 of 6 - Waitrose Dot Com

Blog: Norfolk Single Dad
Posted by: Eddie2sox Wednesday 31st October 2007, 9:13pm

A chance for a cooking website to claim their place at the top of the Scrambled LeagueÂ…..

I like Waitrose.com - more often than not a reliable source of culinary advice. I decided to give their Scrambled Eggs recipe a place in the Great Scrambled Egg-Fest.

You can find the link here : http://www.waitrose.com/recipe/Scrambled_Eggs_with_Potted_Brown_Shrimps_on_Toast.aspx

My first problem came when “potted brown shrimps“ were mentioned. Potted shrimps? I think I’ve heard the term before but have no idea what it is. So…..I had a realisation of how the Waitrose website seems to work. In their recipes they list ingredients - fair enough - common practice! However, certain ingredients are direct links to products that you can find inside the store at Waitrose. For example, instead of say “500g new potatoes”, the Waitrose.com recipe might say “500g Waitrose Fresh South Lincolnshire New Potatoes”. Check out a few of their other recipes for confirmation.

This isn’t usually a problem at all, when they say “use Waitrose new potatoes”, new potatoes are such a common item that you can feel confident using 500g of ANY new potatoes you want to. I’ve always done this with Waitrose recipes, simply replace their own, recommended ingredient with your own version. But potted shrimp?

I have to say I did look around four supermarkets here in King’s Lynn, seeking out the Potted Shrimp - didn’t find it. So I was forced into trying to make my own, with a little help from my very good friend Rick Stein. I did my best. Got “most” of the right things to put in it. Cooked it very, very close to Rick’s method. Chilled it in the fridge. Hey presto, next day I have “Potted Shrimp A La Numptie”. So to the scrambled eggs.

For a start, Waitrose added salt and black pepper at the very start of the recipe, meaning the egg mixture was grey-ish, not yellow. A poor start. The potted shrimps were then melted in the pan, removed when warmed through, and saved. Next we are told to return the pan to the heat for 30 seconds, until the butter foams - for such a quick reaction the pan had to be fairly hot, so I used a number 4 setting, which produced the required result in about 45 seconds. The next instruction was to add the beaten egg but keep the heat really low. Note “really low”. As I stated on Sunday, “low” would be a 3 on the hob, so I went for a 2 for “really low”. It didn’t go as advertised in the recipe - which made me wonder if it had actually been tried before being published? Because the pan had to be hot to foam the butter, it was - of course - still hot even when reduced to Electric Mark 2. The recipe states “it should take about 5-6 minutes” - it took less than 2.

To serve, the eggs were piled on the toast, and the shrimps dropped on top, along with a few chives.

So how did this rate:

Taste - 2.5 - The eggs themselves were average, not amazing, not nasty, but……average. I think if I could have got hold of “57g Tub of Morecambe Bay Brown Potted Shrimps” instead of trying to cobble together my own version it would have been better! (Probably had a lot more preservatives and E numbers to make it taste better, but don‘t tell anyone I said that).

Texture - 2 - Again, the eggs were OK. Not spectacular. The early addition of the black pepper turns the egg mixture grey, which is much less pleasing to the eye than Mr Breakfast’s bright yellow. My potted shrimps? Hmmmmm…..I’d like to try this one again with REAL potted shrimps, as I love seafood.

Ease/Effort - 1.5 - VERY easy if you‘re using ready-made potted shrimps. Flipping hard if you have to fly by the baggy seats of your pants and make your own. The easiest part was sprinkling a few chives on top before serving.

Total score = 6 out of 15. A poor score. This is influenced by the whole potted shrimps issue. But then again, maybe I’ve just exposed a major supermarket as offering a supposedly helpful cooking database, yet sneakily promoting their own products? Sorry Waitrose, hope you do better in the next taste test extravaganza. Or send me some free samples to road test.

Results so far:

11 - Jamie Oliver

9.5 - Mr Breakfast

8.5 - Delia Smith

6 - Waitrose Dot Com

Tomorrow - Nigella Lawson

Friday - James Martin

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