Sausage roll, homemade sausages, puff pastry, tomato sauce

For my sausage these are the meats that I had on hand so these are the meats that I used. I also have bacon, bacon fat and duck fat. 

It is the end of the season and I am long on herbs. These are all from the terrace, mint, cilantro, basil and parsley. 

My own sourdough pieces baked to dryness like commercial panko.

Sauce: 

Tin of San Marzano tomatoes

olive oil

Onion

Garlic

Bay leaf

chile flakes

wine

Heat olive oil, cook onion and garlic. When done and at risk of burning pour some tomato sauce or a single tomato into the pan and allow it to singe and spatter and burn onto areas of the pot even while it protects the garlic and onion from further burning as the mass turns to thick sludge. 

Clear it off with wine.

Dump in the tin of tomatoes without breaking them up.

Refrigerator or freezer is rearranged to accommodate a baking tray flatly.

The dough is yeast dough with baking soda to change the ph and salt but no butter this time. 

A sheet of butter 2/3 the size of the sheet pan is created by melting one stick of butter in the microwave to liquid. A sheet of plasticine wrap covers a baking tray for ease of butter-sheet removal and the tray is set inside the freezer or refrigerator.

Melted butter is poured over the frozen metal tray and plastic to 2/3 the size of the tray. The tray is so cold the butter begins to slow and thicken immediately. It needn't be poured all at once. The butter slab can be created in multiple pours much like dipping a candle. Finally a usable sheet of butter is created that is cold enough to be lifted from its tray by the plastic and set on cold yeast dough rolled flatly to the full size of its own tray. The edges of the plastic are used to lift the sheet of frozen butter and flip it onto the cold dough rolled out the full size of the baking tray, The frozen butter slab arranged on top of the rolled dough so that 1/3 of the dough is uncovered. The plastic pulled off. That naked third is folded over the center buttered third (and presenting an unbuttered top). Then the end butter third is folded over the whole thing. Boom. Three layers of flake with two lawyers of butter just like that.

Chill.

Roll out to the size of the tray. Fold in thirds. 

Roll out to the size of the tray. Fold in thirds.

That déjà vu thing is happening again, really hard this time.

Chill.

Roll out to the size of the tray. Fold in thirds.

I had a hard time deciding what type of dough to use. I prefer something easy, and I'm glad I decided on puff pastry. Puff pastry is the way to go. 

This form of puff is how croissants are made. Again, it is a plain yeast dough, not a short dough like regular puff. The plain yeast dough would have been fine by itself without all that extra butter for flake pastry and puff pastry, like a hotdog bun around a sausage. That is what the refrigerator dough is like. (I presume, I never ate one) A short dough like a flaky pie crust dough would work too just as well. Especially if folded in layers. All of them are used.

But, of the choices, puff pastry is quite incredible. It makes the whole thing fun to eat. Flakes all over the place.

Americans have their pigs in a blanket, usually a hotdog rolled into refrigerator dinner roll dough that comes in a tube that you hit firmly and resolutely on a table edge causing the unique packaging, weaker along a spiral, to explode open, as the whole thing is under pressure especially if the cylinder has been sitting around at room temperature.  It is the most fun thing about the refrigerator doughs that come in a tube, or one of the most terrifying things about them. It's all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. 

The hotdog rolled in refrigerator dough has an hor d'oeuvres version made of miniature franks that come in a jar or a tin and the same refrigerator dough. These are often the top item in a person's repertoire for hor d'oeuvres for entertaining or for satisfying a pot luck requirement, and that top position is reinforced when their family and friends and coworkers tell them how delicious they are. 

But see the carelessness in choice of ingredients there? 

The original idea was careless: sausage in dough. Hastily constructed from convenient ingredients and served in pubs.

The idea is hardly unique. Corn dog. Chinese sausage buns. Egg rolls. Pierogi. Ravioli.  

This is Gordon Ramsey on a panel of judges for Masterchefs remarking on this gentleman's sausage roll.

Lamb, rice, liver

I could not decide which mesmerizing photograph of this outstanding satisfying meal of remnant lamb roast and rice with Asiago cheese and chicken liver to use so I put up two photographs because it is worth it. 

The chicken liver came inside a whole chicken and I'm glad it was in there. Sometimes this is called dirty rice, but I do not care for that descriptor.

The potato is microwaved so already done when fried with the lamb chunks in the same pan with onion and garlic. Removed from the pan, vermouth to clear off the pan, so the start of a sauce with butter, a tad flour for a very light roux and then cream while whisking. Elapsed time, 45 seconds.  The sauce fills the entire bottom of the plate.

With all that going on, and not bad for a scrounge session, eh?, my favorite part is still a thin slice of crispy neutral iceberg lettuce placed as a disc between two spoonfuls of flavorful rice. 

xxx

Lamb, potato

Bam! Lamb.

Lamb and corn

The prepared elements go in and out of the pan staged. They are not just thrown in and left to go on their own while the cook turns attention to something else. They are turned while they're in there, wine and water added and covered to cook through at one point, the cover removed and butter added to form a rich sauce and luxuriously thoroughly coat everything and reheat all the things taken out and all bathed and brought up evenly to serving temperature. The sauce makes an excellent dressing for greens. 

Rice with lamb

White rice, nutritionally insubstantial but spiced up and cooked like the guy knew what he was doing or something.

Leftover lamb that was coated last night but not fried with the rest so it sat there with its flour coating all night and half the next day. So old leftover lamb carelessly handled and boy is it ever delicious.

These are the smaller bits of lamb that didn't get fried, so not all that much was leftover that way. I almost threw it out. Enough leftover flour dusted lamb to reconstruct a mammal, I'd say, about the size of a rat.

Well, that wasn't very nice. Sorry.

But it does show what you get if you're ever in trouble in a post-apocalyptic future. And if you're good at pretending you can use this for inspiration. 

Lamb strips

This is what's left of a frozen lamb roast.

A disc removed from this.

Which means there's more where this disc came from.

A nosh. I go to the freezer, take out some lamb, cook it, put the rest back.

And that led me to thinking about those coyotes and foxes and raccoons that head out at night and kill my friend's peacocks for their dinner. One after another. Night after night. Peacock, chicken, Guinea fowl, peacock, chicken Guinea fowl, peacock peacock peacock until there is only one peacock left and that one doesn't even have those big feathers in the back because they all fell out. So kind of plain looking except for that ridiculous thing on its head and still rather large. 

And my friend said his neighbor sold some prime acreage next to his and my friend made a full offer right off because it would have been a nice addition and he's buying a bunch of land out there, but the neighbor said, this came out later and through a break in confidentiality, the seller said, "I aint sellin' my land to that guy." My friend is certain it's because he's gay, and that negative attitude is illegal around here when it affects real estate deals, there is little comfort in my assessment, I said to my friend, "No, it was probably because of your silly pansy-ass peacocks." 

Harsh, he had already suffered a series of losses.

But I should probably mention, the lamb is cut against the grain like the London broil is cut so that only short muscle fibers remain. That goes a long way in making these strips tender as can be. The strips are like very tall stacks of short muscle fiber, and they pull right apart.

Also, for a coating to be crispy then leave out milk and use water instead. This is soda water like tempura. Soda water and seasoned flour is mixed to a thick paste, then additional soda water is whisked in incrementally until a thin batter forms.

Also also, the pieces are dusted first so the batter sticks on, and most of the batter MOST OF IT is gently rubbed OFF before dropping into the hot oil. It's a very thin coating. Thinner than you might think. And it's rubbed off. Not just dripped off. Speeds it up. Close to the hot oil. To limit the mess. An egg white is whisked in there too I forgot to mention that, but not an egg yolk. And a ton of spices. Or possibly a tablespoon. 

Lamb and pineapple

cinnamon

cumin

salt

black pepper

cayenne pepper

powdered ginger

powdered garlic

powdered mustard

turmeric

brown sugar

Half the spices go directly on the lamb which is fried in hot butter. The spices nearly burn on the lamb so turmeric and brown sugar are not included there, but held off until the lamb is removed from the pan and fresh butter is added and all the rest of the spices including turmeric and brown sugar along with the pineapple. Tadaa. 

This is fresh pineapple and it is wonderful jazzed up with all these complimentary flavors. I would not consider tinned pineapple unless it is for some kind of post apocalyptic situation. 

Homemade sourdough bread, shredded lamb sandwich

This plastic blade for bread came by UPS and I had forgotten that I ordered it. It is shown next to a regular blade.

The dough is 1/4 levain and the rest regular commercial yeast. White AP flour, sea salt, lecithin.

This bread is probably perfect for this sort of thing. From my point of view the crumb is disappointingly tight and closed, but that is a goal for sandwich bread, an obvious advantage for things not poking through or falling out the wide open holes that I like so much. 

I am not a good judge for sourdough flavor, from my assessment the finished bread is insufficiently flavored with the levain but I think anyone else will detect it immediately. I find it wanting. But, boy, does it ever explode. Every step went more than twice as fast as instructions anywhere say. Every single step. If I wasn't right here and watching attentively then it would have overproofed. For bread, this is very fast. It tastes very good and I am satisfied.

The lamb is left over from a sandwich yesterday. There is also a fluffy cheese smear.

I was starving and I mean starving so there in four impolite bites that go like this: chompgrindswallow chompgrindswallow chompgrindswallow chompgrindswallow and that starvation is completely stopped and it's like, "What deliciousness has smitten me!"