February 2019 | Wai Lin Coultas

A CULINARY creation of the Tejano people living in Texas, Tex-Mex fuses Mexican cuisine with American ingredients including yellow cheese, beef or pork, beans, peppers, spices and the hard shell taco.

Marrying US ingredients with an Australian love for sausages and local fresh produce bursting forth in warm sunny February and with Tasmania’s abundance of delicious gin, this recipe births refreshingly light tacos – the perfect summer fare assembled from delectable ingredients filling wicker baskets at our favourite picnic destinations.

Ingredients

1¾ medium carrot, grated 60g snow peas, thinly sliced diagonally 100g mini truss tomatoes, diced 10g fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped 8g fresh dill, chopped 60g gherkins, thinly sliced 12 Old El Paso’s original corn taco hard shells, warmed

For the sausage sauce

250 ml boiling water 20g dried porcini mushrooms 4 cloves garlic, peeled & minced ½ medium onion, peeled & diced 1 x 462g packet Boks Pork Sausages with Peppercorns, thinly sliced after removing skins 1 cube beef stock, crumbled 5 tsp honey 4½ tbsp. tomato ketchup 2 tbsp tomato paste 1½ tbsp. aged balsamic vinegar 2 tsp dried oregano 2 tsp dried marjoram 2 tsp cassia powder pinch cayenne pepper Canola oil, Salt

For the dressing

2 tbsp mayonnaise 1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce 2½ tsp gin 1½ tsp white vinegar

Instructions

1. To make sausage sauce, first soak porcini mushrooms in water for 15 minutes before chopping them up; setting aside porcini infused water.

2. In saucepan of heated canola oil, stir fry onions till tender and beginning to brown before adding garlic to stir fry till fragrant.

3. Add sausages; stir frying till all pink pork has turned white before adding porcini, mushroom infused water and beef stock cube.

4. Next add tomato ketchup, tomato paste, balsamic vinegar, dried herbs and spices; stir frying till sauce thickens; seasoning with salt.

5. Meanwhile making dressing by mixing mayonnaise, chilli sauce, gin and white vinegar.

6. To fill a tacos shell, first spoon in 2½ tbsp cooled sausage sauce before adding 1/12 of gherkins over and topping that with first 1/12 of carrots, then 1/12 of snow peas and finally 1/12 of tomatoes; drizzling over 1 tbsp dressing before garnishing with 1/12 of fresh parsley and dill.

Serves 4.