Mains-Veal Cutlets and Gumbo

Mains I served up during the Christmas holidays...

From the masterchef cookbook, veal cutlets and tarragon chips with mushroom sauce

Start with fresh ingredients... lovely pinky veal cutlets.First time using tarragon... with thinly cut potato chips




Dinner is served!

The next thing I try is from Jamie's America after Dave reminded me countless times that I promised to make him gumbo.

First I fried the spicy italian sausage to get the oils out before setting them aside.

Using the oils, add plain flour and keep frying and stirring until peanut butter coloured or browner.. this is called the roux.... fascinating concept of using the fat from good sausages and mixing it with flour to make this tasty paste.

Then add the "holy trinity" of gumbo, onions + celery + capsicum
Added okra (ladies fingers) as a natural thickener for the gumbo
Fresh prawns, peeled and deveined

Last in are the chicken and prawns. Once they are cooked, it'll be ready to serve, serve with rice or a crusty bread roll

Perfectly matched with a James Squire golden ale

Sweet pastry treats

I attempt sweet shortcrust pastry for the first time these holidays, usually I take the lazy way out and use the pastry sheets readily available from the supermarket all nicely rolled out for you.

Recipe from Jamie Oliver's America as I attempt to make also for the first time: bourbon pecan pie


Step 1: To rub in the 125g of cold butter cubes into my mixture of 50g icing sugar +250g plain flour until it resembles bread crumbs

Step 2: Scraped some vanilla seeds out of a fresh pod and added it to the pastry
Step 3: Then add an egg and a splash of milk and work it into a ball of dough

Step 4: Work it then wrap it in some clingfilm and rest it in the fridge for 30min
Step 5: Fun time! Rolling it out and into my tart tin. Approximately 0.5cm thin and pricked the base before putting it in the freezer for another 30mins.Had extra pastry so I made two more little tartlets.
Here they are after baking blind in a 180 degree oven for 10mins

Looks so rough and rustic .. not very pretty

For the little tarts - lemon curd filling

1 egg + 20g caster sugar +30mL pouring cream +25mL lemon juice and mix over simmering water

Until its curdy, then cool in the fridge
Scoop into my bake tartlet cases which then got gobbled down by Dave really quickly
What happened to the big case

- 175g brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon whisked together

then add 200g ground pecans, 100mL molasses, 50g unsalted butter and 50mL bourbon

Mix well then throw in 250g of whole pecans

Add to my baked pastry case then bake for 25-30min

Yummy served with freshly whipped cream