Main: Veal with Crab
Women’s Weekly Dinner Party Cookbook Pg. 88
Dessert: Profiteroles with chocolate sauce
My own adaptation
Hi there everyone!
So, this is again from the original Dinner Party Cookbook, so very, very old.
The first thing I must say is that the success of this dish comes down to the quality of your veal. It must be the real deal and if cooked quickly it will remain tender.
It is a delicious and attractive dish. So much can be done ahead as well making it fantastic when having people around. Crumb the veal, make the sauce and have the crab at the ready (I just use canned crab). I have cooked it many times over the years and it is a never fail to impress. However, where the surprise for me came was that I decided to keep strictly to their suggestions with the potato and the salad. I usually try to get all fancy with potato casseroles by adding leek and basil, blah, blah, but this is simply sliced potato, sliced onions, salt, pepper and cream all layered and cooked little over an hour (how simple is that!). Now, the salad they suggest – wow! Wait for it! They suggest a plain old lettuce. Not, fried kale with wilted spinach leaves and pomegranate sprigs!!! Simply lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, cooked and crumbled bacon, parsley and wait for it, bottled french dressing. Sometimes I just want to hug someone at Women’s Weekly for their simplicity. As I have said before, this blog is about getting back to basics. The combination worked beautifully. The only thing I did differently was that I added more mushrooms to the sauce because I felt it looked a bit pale. Everyone loved it and gave the meal an average of 9/10.
Dessert was a different story. I had to do the choux pastry twice. My first attempt ended up with pimples.
I have done choux before but this time I went against what I had done in the past and used the electric mixer instead of sticking to the wooden spoon and beating by hand. My second attempt was a huge improvement. These can be done the day before and kept in an airtight container. I am not fond of the profiteroles that are filled with cream – I like the custard filled ones. So, I made custard from scratch and piped it into the little rolls when they were cool. The chocolate sauce is a Womens Weekly recipe from the original DPCB on page 108. They looked fantastic but guess what?
I was told that they were rather “bland”. So what could I have done to liven them up? Probably a little more sugar in the custard and more alcohol in the sauce but at the end of the day the pastry itself is bland. I think in fact it is suppose to be a more subtle flavour. Well, that’s what I am telling myself anyway. I will make them again but not for this spoilt lot who only gave them 7/10.
Until next week.
From my table to yours with love.
