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Bryan Martin's veal tacos with tomatillo salsa

Bryan Martin

Veal breast tacos with tomatillo salsa.
Veal breast tacos with tomatillo salsa.David Reist

As a parent you rejoice in the differences that are expressed in your kids. You realise early there's not a lot you can do to influence them, just hang on for the ride and hope they don't become a stunt double for Johnnie Knoxville of Jackass fame.

Like my youngest, a quiet boy – thoughtful, quiet, computer-savvy. If fact, now that I think of it, he stopped asking me technology questions when he would have been eight years old. Probably not liking the confused look on his old man's dial and lack of anything helpful other than suggesting he turn it off at the power point and see what happens.

He is also the first of our tribe to show an interest in food other than just liking to eat it. He is exactly the same age I was when food became a bit of a passion so I'm all about encouraging him. All this year he has initiated our weekly Mexican night, Taco Tuesday as he calls it. It's a fun night where the main problem is coming up with new ideas. We have had just about every dish I can remotely find including enchiladas, tamales, tortillas and quesadillas, but I'm running out of ideas.

Pressing the taco.
Pressing the taco.David Reist
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Now he wants to start up a food van called Taco Tuesdays at the next school fete. I'm all for encouraging the kids but this might be out of my league trying to find an old caravan and rebuilding it to his specs.

The good news though, is that working this year at the winery is none other than one Sam Leyshon. Who is he? Well, firstly a nice chap but he also used to be a manager for Raph Rashid's famous Taco Truck food van business down in Melbourne.

Raph, short for Rafael, was a pioneer in food trucks down there when he started Beatbox Burger a while back. The follow-up was the very successful Taco Truck, where the location is posted on social media each day and even with that hurdle, has long lines waiting for his signature tacos.

So, having Sam here is the perfect opportunity to look at the taco and see if we can dissuade my son from his plan to start his own taco truck business here.

The secret is keeping it simple, the taco truck works mostly around just three tacos, beef, fish and potato. Also making your own taco shells from yellow or blue corn masa flour gives them an authenticity that no El Paso tortilla will do. You won't get a better Tex-Mex experience.

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The Minsa brand yellow corn masa flour is what I found at Essential Ingredient in Kingston. Making the corn tortillas is very easy, you just mix the flour with warm water, roll or, if you have a tortilla press, press them into small discs, fry them up, top with a shredded meat and an appropriate salsa and they are done. Sam suggested a simple tomatillo salsa as a topping to our version. Tomatillos are a green tomato-like fruit that is more closely related to the cape gooseberry. It is native to Mexico and available pickled in tins. Anything doused in this will taste Mexican and with the addition of coriander, onion and chilli makes a pretty good salsa verde.

Veal breast tacos with tomatillo salsa

2 cups yellow corn masa flour
1 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
1 veal breast, trimmed of excess fat
olive oil
1kg veal bones
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
½ head garlic
1 cup red wine
5 sprigs thyme
2 star anise
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tin tomatillos, drained
1 whites onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled
¼ cup jalapeno chillis, drained
2 limes
1 bunch coriander, leaves only

Make the stock the day before. Heat the oven up to 220C and bake the bones, rubbed with a little oil, for an hour until brown all over. Meanwhile in a stock pot cook the onion, carrot, celery and garlic until soft. Deglaze with the wine, add spice and the roasted bones plus enough water to just cover, bring to a simmer, lower heat and cook gently for about five hours, skimming any muck that comes to the surface.

Drain and chill. Next day, about five to six hours before you want to serve the tacos, cover the veal breast with stock and bring to a simmer. Cook over a low heat until the meat starts to fall apart; this will be about four hours. Remove breast and cool a little. You can strain and reserve the stock for another use.

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Pull apart the veal breast into fine threads along the grain. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large fry pan and cook the veal threads until crispy, season with salt and pepper and keep warm.

Mix the flour, water and salt together, knead briefly until it forms a pliable ball of dough. Roll out to a log about 40mm in diameter, wrap and rest for an hour or so. Cut into discs about 15mm wide and roll or press to a thin tortilla that is 12cm across. Cover in a clean towel while you roll out the rest.

Heat a flat griddle until it is hot and cook one tortilla at a time, turning a few times until they start to firm and puff up a little. Once done, keep warm in a few layers of foil. This will keep them moist for use.

To make the salsa, just blend everything together, not too fine just to smash them up a little.

To serve, just take the warm tortillas out of the foil, sprinkle veal threads and drizzle over some salsa and down the gob. You probably want to drink beer with these. I'm enjoying the Californian Sierra Nevada pale ale at the moment, it's a hoppy brew with a nice crisp, lemony finish. So that will do if you can find it.

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