Dish 10: Pork & Fennel Sausage Rolls

The dish

You may know by now that I'm not a huge pork fan. Still, not only have I sworn to myself to prepare every dish in this cookbook, I will always give stuff a second, third, or fourth chance. 

And so I chose to make Pork & Fennel Sausage Rolls (p. 120).

The preparation

To be honest, the prospect of having to make my own sausage rolls was kind of daunting. I had no idea if it was going to be hard or if I had to be very careful with amounts. 

In terms of preparation, this is becoming kind of a regular thing: you start by chopping things up, such as shallots!

And then you chop up some more things, including the fennel! For the record and in case you have never cooked with fennel before (comme moi), remove the heart of the fennel, like you would with witlof (chicory/endive).

Next step: mashing everything together with your pork mince. It seemed all fine and dandy up until this point. 

And then came the part that worried me: getting out your puff pastry and actually forming the sausage rolls.

Unlike the recipe in the book, the puff pastry I had were not slabs of 15 x 30cm. Instead I had to work with squares of 10 x 10cm.

I had calculated that I didn't need that many, but ended up adding more as the portions of the minced meat concoction were so plentiful that the 6 or 7 sheets I had laid out were hardly sufficient.

Still, I tried to stuff as much meat into the puff pastry as possible.

As you can see, the meat mix took up about one third of the puff pastry, so folding these little rascals and keeping them shut was quite an experience. Luckily my egg wash helped a lot, and I think the experience I have with using this kind puff pastry when making apple turnovers also gave me a boost of confidence.

Let me tell you: I won. And all these little pigs in blankets went straight into the oven with their fennel comrades.

 

The result

They turned out quite alright, although, perfectionist as I am, I'm not entirely pleased with the way they look, simply because they don't look the way they do in the book. But then, this is the first time ever I made them, and they are incredibly good-looking, aren't they?

As for taste... Well, let's just say they tasted of pork. But the addition of fennel was really great! I think I did make a mistake regarding seasoning, though, because I found that I really needed to sprinkle extra salt over it to give it some flavour. The moment I had figured that out, it was all good.

Mine were also twice as big as they are supposed to be if you follow the recipe precisely, but since I prepared them for dinner, I figured a slightly bigger version of the same thing couldn't do any harm. And it didn't, but they are quite heavy on the stomach. I would definitely suggest them as a party snack, though!

Next time

Next time I'm not going to prepare a full dish. Instead, I will focus on one of the extras in The Next Element, and that is a sauce! I know, it's absolutely thrilling. But just you wait, Henry Higgins!

See you at our next elemental meal!

Dish 2, 3 and 4: The Crispiest Skin Pork Belly, Honeyed Carrots, Pomme Puree

The dish

Yesterday I prepared The Crispiest Skin Pork Belly (p. 92). I usually don't eat a lot of pork, because I don't like the taste of it very much, but I had never really had pork belly, so I was definitely keen to try this.

Other than pork I also prepared some Honeyed Carrots (p. 73) and Pomme Puree (p. 60), to accompany that slab of meat. I have prepared honeyed carrots before, but for those I took inspiration from Julie Goodwin's cookbook. I was curious to see how much these carrots would differ from that recipe. Naturally I have also prepared mashed potatoes before, but I have never actually pressed potatoes through a sieve, despite having seen it done on various cooking shows.

The preparation

A trip to the butcher's got me some nice pork belly, although I bought a little over half of what the recipe required, because I only prepared it for two people, whereas the recipe is for a company of four.

If you don't like handling meat or seeing that meat comes from "a real animal", keep in mind that carving the pork's skin may be a little daunting. In the broad daylight, seeing how much their skin and ours look alike, it really makes it sink in that this used to be a living animal.

Anyway, I carved the skin, which proved to be a little trickier than expected. I guess my chef's knife just isn't as sharp as I'd hoped, because it was quite hard to get through.

I figured that because the piece I bought was so much smaller than the one in the recipe, I would be fine putting it in the oven for a shorter period of time. However, because it was the first time ever I had made it, I wasn't sure what it was supposed to look like after the first scorching 30-40 minutes. Strangely enough, despite having salted both sides equally, only one side started to look like I know crackling to look like, whereas the other stayed white and dry. I still don't know what happened there.

Because it took the full 40 minutes for the better half to look crispy, by then I decided I would just follow the recipe as it was, overcooking the pork be damned. I'm fine with messing up a dish if it's the first time ever, so that I know what went wrong.

In the meantime I started on the pomme purée and the honeyed carrots. Luckily I had done both of these before, and since neither required the oven (whereas Julie Goodwin's honeyed carrots also spend some time in the oven), I could combine it perfectly.

First time ever I pressed boiled potatoes through a sieve with a tea towel. And yes, the purée was silky smooth and to my big surprise the pan I mixed the potatoes, milk and butter in stayed almost perfectly clean, and the purée began to look like a kind of dough. Perhaps it was a bit like gnocchi in that sense. Interesting.

Final result

Was the pork belly crispy? Definitely! You couldn't hear yourself think when chewing it, and I have proof in the form of a video which I may or may not post later.

The pomme puree was super smooth, and because I added extra butter, had a great flavour. All in all, however, I'm much more of a chunky mash eater, so although I know that I could make some of my friends really happy serving them this puree, I myself probably won't make it this way soon again.

As for the carrots, although I couldn't really mess up there, I do think I was a little overenthusiastic with the lemon juice. The carrots, although lovely, sweet and fresh, were a little on the sour side, thanks to this overdose of lemon juice. It did accompany the silky creamy puree and the fatty pork crackling perfectly, though!

If you do love pork, this dish is amazing. If, like me, you're not a big fan of the flavour of pork, I would give this dish a miss. Over all, for a cold and snowy day, such as the one we had yesterday (and today), why not prepare such a wintery meal?

Next time

Next time I will prepare an Andy Allen dish a little later than the weekend, because, as it goes, those days are already planned full. Instead I'm going to go for the Mid-Week Beef Curry (p. 51) on Tuesday or Wednesday. Perhaps it is a little easier than some of the other dishes, but I find that with limited time, one needs to make such choices.

You already know what I will prepare the week after that, and if the recipe is really simple, I will also attempt one of Kylie Millar's desserts. Which one, I don't know yet.

Stay tuned and see you at our next elemental meal!