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It's not frequent that I cook a dish that is thoroughly inedible. Sometimes my dishes are not popular, but most of the time we can at least eat them. This dish went into the compost bin almost untouched. I don't eat eggs so I didn't taste it, but my daughter said it tasted mostly of lemons – and she didn't think the egg/lemon combination was in the least tasty -, while my husband thought it tasted like yoghurt, which he doesn't like. The dish was too heavy to give to our dog, so it was a waste of good and expensive foodstuff.
This time, I'm laying responsibility on Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, who adapted the recipe for The British Museum Cookbook. She got the proportions completely wrong. For one, her recipe asked for 6 eggs, while the original recipe said to put as many as fit in the baking pan. As it was, there was way too much cream for the amount of eggs. More importantly, Berriedale-Johnson had us put the juice of 3 oranges and the juice of 2 lemons – making the dish impossibly citrusy – while the original recipe called for just the juice of one orange or lemon. Moreover the juice is to be added after cooking, when you have an opportunity to taste it and put the right amount.
Finally, the eggs cooked at 325F did not set in 15 minutes. It took about 45 minutes in the oven before they were set enough to eat.
Adapted from a recipe in The British Museum Cookbook |
based on a recipe in William Verral’s