OK. Now we all know why we are here. Lets get down to business.
I am sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that Crusty Savory Veal Casserole consists of two main elements.
1. The crust
2. The veal casserole filling
Lets begin with the crust. This recipe does not just have a crust on top like you might expect from a shepherds pie, nor a pastry crust like you might expect from a regular pie. No. For the Crusty Savory Veal Casserole, the crust is made from sour cream, self raising flour and butter all mixed together and smeared all over the dish to look like this:
WTF, readers!WTF?!
Sour cream, flour and butter, smeared all over the dish!
Can you believe it? Who the hell thought of this completely crazy idea?!
You don't even bake it first, you just slap the veal casserole right in there and bake it all together.
The mind boggles.
As for the casserole, it consists of veal, bacon, a can of mushrooms (!), an onion, green capsicum, carrot, celery and a can of tomatoes. No salt, or pepper, no stock, no garlic. The recipe requires us to brown the veal in butter (quite a lot, bien sur), then add everything else and simmer for a while.
Once the casserole filling is ready, it's time for the weird science to begin. The filling is placed in the dish with the sour cream, butter and flour goo then baked for about 40 minutes. With about 10 minutes to go, you take it out, and scatter a combination of crushed cornflakes and grated cheddar cheese over the top. That's right everybody: crushed cornflakes and grated cheddar.
It goes back in the oven for another 10 minutes and voila, Crusty Savory Veal Casserole:
Doesn't it look totally gross?! Look at all that oil pooling on top!It's a hot mess, right? I scooped the oil off the top because it was really grossing me out, and then served up a plate for myself. It was time to eat this totally unappetising dish. I was far from optimistic.
Readers, I loved it.
It turns out that when baked, the crust puffs up to become like a delicious dumpling. It's really quite amazing how it does this while filled with all that sloppy filling, but it does! And despite being full of sour cream and butter, it tastes light and lovely! The casserole itself is so full of flavour and again, I was very surprised by this. It was basically this delicious rich and hearty thing and it worked so well with the crust. It was very very satisfying.
After eating it, I spent most of the evening thinking about what this could mean for the all the other Australian Women's Weekly recipes I have been laughing at for years. Maybe they are delicious too! I couldn't get the Crusty Savory Veal Casserole out of my head, and so ate it for breakfast the next day. It was still completely delicious!
I asked Midbro to serve himself a plate so I could get a second opinion. He sent me the following text message after eating it:
"Dinner was delicious dude, thanks!"
then this the following morning:
"Do you mind if I finish off the casserole, dude?"
No jokes, everyone loves Crusty Savory Veal Casserole.
Thanks, Australian Women's Weekly!
impressive. very impressive.
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