Here’s one I’ve made before. In one of my previous entries (6-22: Crispy Chicken Drumsticks), I mentioned doing all the cooking for a family dinner party when I was 12-13 years old with a similarly-aged family friend of mine. 9-20: Meat Roly-Poly is another one of the recipes I remember making for that party.
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Another memory from this dinner party: I had just gotten a new CD (Version 2.0 by Garbage) and we were listening to it on my parents’ GIANT 1970s hi-fi stereo system over and over as we spent the day cooking. Gives you an idea of how old I am, and how long I’ve been cooking from this book.
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One more memory for you, this time relevant to this recipe: I remember it taking me much longer than anticipated. It was one of my first experiences working with a yeast dough, and I think I failed to take into account how long it would need to rise (it might not have been warm enough either).
Either way, I remember feeling stressed that it was taking too long to make–I don’t even remember if we got it out in time for the start of the party. I have some bad feelings associated with this recipe I think for this reason.
Having MUCH more experience now, almost 20 years and many doughs later, I feel like it’ll go better this time around.
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Ingredients. LF milk because that’s what we have, and some big portobello caps that I’m going to dice up for the mushrooms. Panko for breadcrumbs because that’s how it goes.
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Melted the butter in my butter melter.
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Dissolving the yeast in the butter/milk mix.
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Feels a lot like pizza dough. I usually do a cold rise on my pizza doughs, but to a warm place it goes. Cold rises take a few days, so this will have to do.
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Slicing up the mushrooms after chopping onions.
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Made the broth to add to the (now much smaller) veggies.
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Mixed the meat with the egg & panko. Totally forgot to save some egg for egg wash at this point.
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Combined the meat mixture with the onion mixture.
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After about 40 minutes. Well, it’s definitely bigger. And definitely big enough.
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Rolled it out to about the size of my 12″ x 18″ cutting board. Figured that was close enough.
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Spread my meat mixture like I’m making a pizza.
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Started the roll–so far so good.
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Rolled it up and put it on a Silpat–parchment paper or just greasing the sheet works too. The ends look kind of funky, but it’s about slices, not ends. Ends of sushi rolls look weird too.
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Grabbed another egg out of the fridge, beat it, mixed in a bit of water, and brushed it over the outside of the roll.
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Final step–sprinkled it with sesame seeds. Here it goes. So far, much less pressure and stress than last time.
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After its trip through the oven. Well, the crust looks good, and that end was funky anyway. How does the rest of it look?
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Another view of the crust. Egg wash gives you that nice shine, and thinning it with water makes it more consistent. It blorped a bit on the side there, but again, it’s about slices–you’ll never know on the final plate.
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After slicing through the middle (DON’T do it on the Silpat like I did–you end up slicing your Silpat) for a nice cross-section. Looks less “tight” than theirs, but it’s also pretty juicy.
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Final product. I ended up getting about 7-8 slices off of it, not counting the weird ends, it tasted great, and it reheats well in the microwave. It ended up not taking me that long (although time is a funny thing as you get older–it’s definitely relative) and I’m pretty pleased with the results. I’m glad I made my peace with 9-20: Meat Roly-Poly.
Grade: A-