Veal with Mushrooms and Vegetable Risotto & Lemon Coconut Strawberry Flan

Main:  Veal with Mushrooms and Vegetable Risotto
Women’s Weekly Dinner Party Cookbook No. 2

Dessert:  Lemon Coconut Strawberry Flan
Women’s Weekly Light & Luscious

Hello everyone!

Hope you’ve had a great week and tried a few new recipes.  I’m delving into the the Dinner Party Cookbook No.2 again and have found a rather impressive veal with mushrooms, accompanied by vegetable risotto.  Well, for me the risotto would be reason alone to cook this little combination.

Now, I’m going to start by saying that I haven’t ever cooked a “nut” of veal.  It is the fillet from the end of the leg so I just thought with a name like “nut” and being from the leg, it would be sort of round???  Well, no it was quite flat so that took me by surprise in terms of carving.  We ended up with much thinner strips of meat than I anticipated and I don’t know that I did such a great job in the presentation department.  BUT what about flavour you ask.  Given that the veal is marinated for 4 hours (which of course makes you think that this is perhaps a less tender cut to begin with) and then cooked for 90 minutes in a sauce combining the marinade with stock, worcestershire, thyme and tarragon, I would expect nothing less than it to be tasty and it was.  The mushrooms are added to the sauce once the veal is cooked.  Colour is the thing that I found not quite what I expected.  The veal didn’t have a pinkness to it, I guess because of the marinating and the texture was a lot like corned beef (which was fine) but the sauce seemed to be very light in colour and whilst tasty enough, visually it just didn’t have the appeal.

The vegetable risotto was delicious and it could be altered by adding different veg – perhaps whatever you have in the fridge.  I would, however next time reduce the amount of water and increase the amount of wine to compensate.  I think that would definitely juju the flavour up a bit.  Steamed broccoli on the side and you’re done.  The family seemed to like it and it scored 8.5/10

The lemon coconut and strawberry flan was super easy from the Light & Luscious Summertime Cookbook.  It’s a flan in the old fashioned style my mother used to make.  I couldn’t for the life of me find apple jelly so I substituted orange marmalade and it was absolutely fine.  It’s one of those recipes that goes well with just about any jam.  I love coconut and and in this flan it creates a little crunch when you bite into it.  Served with a dollop of cream it works well as a dessert or alternatively a lovely morning/afternoon tea.  8/10

This menu is a hearty one that I think you’ll enjoy – give it a go.

Until next week.

From my table to yours with love x