Le Gavroche chez moi (part 1)

A couple of days ago, I borrowed the Le Gavroche cookbook from the library.  It's a heavenly book packed with lovely pictures and stunning food.  So, feeling brave, I attempted to cook two courses from it for last nights dinner.  I am certainly no Michel Roux Jr, but I am still feeling pretty smug about the results!

Our main course was Rib of veal with a herb crust, a tomato sauce and roasted potatoes and dessert was a delightful Rhubarb Compote with orange sabayon and strawberry syrup. Alas, the dessert was supposed to be served with pepper tuiles, but these turned into a disaster and I had to ask Daring Bakers for help!  A lovely blogger helped me out and you can find info on his tuiles here http://audaxartifex.blogspot.com/2009/01/tuiles-thin-crisp-and-tasty.html 

Anyway, I have to confess, I didn't follow M. Roux's recipes to a T, but they were roughly in line with what he did.  I topped the veal with a herb crust based on his which comprised of:

A big handful of parsley, of chives, and the leaves of 3 rosemary "twigs"
2 handfuls of breadcrumbs
50g of strong, mature cheese (I used cheddar)
50g butter
drizzle of olive oil

I whizzed all these together with a small stick blender.  I had to add the olive oil to get everything going; also, make sure your butter is soft - mine wasn't soft enough and took much longer to whizz than it should have done.

You then wrap up the herb paste in a tube of cling film, wrapping it tightly into a sausage shape.  You can fridge this until it's needed. 

To feed two people, I used 2 x 250 veal chops.  This is a pretty large hunk of meat, but trust me, you won't be able to stop eating!  Trim the veal and then seal in a hot frying pan; transfer to the oven (180C) for around 10 minutes, turning over the meat half way through.  At this point you need to be patient - I could hve happily eaten my rib right there and then, but patience is required as you rest the meat for around 10 minutes. 

Whilst the meat is resting, cut two 1/2 cm pieces of the solid herb paste and roll them out between two pieces of cling film until they are the size of the veal ribs.  Then heat your grill.

Top the rested veal with the rolled out herb paste, trimming it to fit the shape exactly.  Then pop underneath the grill until the herb paste is bubbling and starting to brown.

Serve immediately, and watch the eaters look like they have died and gone to heaven!

I still have some of the herb paste left, so I have frozen it.  It's incredible deep flavour would work really well with other white meats, and I am going to try it with pork next time.  It's certainly something I will be doing for my next dinner party as it can be prepared in advance, allowing me more cocktail drinking time with my guests!