Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Quail Eggs, Bacon and Scallops:



So…are you guys going to blog about this?”



At that question, I looked up from monitoring the toasting French baguette. David paused cooking nitrate free applewood smoked bacon and gently cracking quail eggs into the skillet.





We both looked at each other, then at 5chw4r7z. “eh, maybe.” we both shrugged. “Meh.”



Food blogging in restaurants is fairly easy if you factor out the situations where the light is off and makes pictures grainy or difficult to take. The food is cooked by someone else, then presented in front of you; you snap some pictures and go about your meal.

Blogging while cooking, on the other hand, is totally different. We’re always cooking and finding lots of fantastic, tasty things—chili, carnitas, chicken alfredo. Steaks and roasts and cultured cream biscuits. Why haven’t you heard about it? Lots of reasons.



Taking nice pictures while cooking is a delicate balance. Snapping away, keeping an eye on the food itself to make sure it’s not burning while you’ve got the camera glued to your face. Look out for the cat, which is always underfoot in the kitchen, don’t step on his tail. Don’t get food on the camera. And don’t drop the camera in a skillet of bacon fat. And you need both hands to handle the camera, which means putting the beer down. The devil is in the details.

But 5chw4r7z’s question made me pause for a second. We were not working with the usual proteins here. I had drug David into Findlay Market’s oriental market and walked out with a carton of quail eggs.

We added bacon, smoked gouda and toasted baguette to make cute little appetizers that tasted fantastic.

We still had some quail eggs left over the next day. Determined to not miss this opportunity, we decided to up the ante, and purchased sea scallops to substitute for the baguette. We resolved to cook them that evening. And blog the bejeezus out of it.

Consider yourself warned: If you're hungry now, it's about to get a lot worse.








Quail eggshells are tough, use a knife to help with cracking. Otherwise you will have a big mess, broken quail eggs and a sad face.












We made homemade herbed bread to go with our plate. With plenty of butter.


2 comments:

  1. Everything looks delicious...especially the scallops. So what do quail eggs taste like?

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  2. YAY!! its about time.
    You guys cook so many awesome things its crazy. Now that I think of it, the few times I've taken pictures while cooking, its easier said than done isn't it?
    I was thinking about David exploding that first egg between his fingers, but man, the eggs, bacon and bread were awesome. We still need to buy some eggs for breakfast sandwiches.

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I try to be honest, fair and keep a good sense of humor in my posts--I would appreciate if you follow the same policy with your comments.