The Test Kitchen

Chef Chicken and Sous Chef Char

Chef Chicken extracting the oxtail meat

Lots of ingredients!

Braz managed to crack egg shell in the pasta mix

The guns were USELESS at kneading the pasta dough!

Paua mmmm

Chef Chicken doing the bulk of the prep work

The paua filling made by Chef Braz

Fun times making pasta

Pasta making took soooooo long...

...and ended up sticking together as the kitchen was so hot!

Luckily, Chef Chicken brought wonton pea as a backup plan

The oxtail and carrot filling, recipe (wrongly) provided by Chef C in Auckland

Brushing the pasta with egg

Sous Chef Vaughan taking over Braz' job

Sous Chef Char's immaculate paua ravioli on wonton pea!

Ready for boiling!

Oxtail ravioli on a bed of wilted spinach

Paua ravioli with beurre blanc

On to the main meal... Eye fillet on the hot plate!

Serving up the "Surf and Turf"

The finished product - Eye fillet and prawns with mango and avocado salsa, crispy rosemary potatoes and baby spinach and rocket salad. 

With just over a month to go before the Grand Dinner, the Chefs decided that a Test Kitchen session was in order. Top 10 things we learnt from the Test Kitchen:

1. It is essential that when Chef C sends recipes to Chef Chicken and Chef Braz, he sends the correct recipe with all the right ingredients and quantities. Otherwise, the oxtail ravioli will be as tasteless as it was that night.

2. Chef Braz really needs to concentrate harder and stop taking photos.

3. The Chefs need to keep a cleaner working space and have a prep table - the kitchen was chaos.

4. Char and Vaughan should not be left in charge of dessert.

5. Preparation needs to start earlier - we ate dinner at 10pm.

6. Wonton pea was actually nicer than homemade pasta.

7. Beurre blanc uses a shit load of butter.

8. Women need to be banned from the kitchen (except Char).

9. Micro-greens are non-existent in Wellington.

10. But most importantly, Braz now knows what a mango is, and that ravioli is not risotto.

There is now less than a month to go until the big event, and since 2 more courses have been added to the official menu by the ambitious Chefs, another Test Kitchen may be necessary...Watch this space!