If you've read my blogs in the past years, you may remember that I regularly have certain food cravings for things we used to eat in Holland. I don't long for the country at all but certain things that we grew up with I miss from time to time. Especially if things come to mind when we explain something to our daughter and then we realise we ate something that she never had in her life and want her to try it.
Sometimes these cravings can be fulfilled with just a few clicks because I already gathered a list of items from a certain supermarket online who offers a big assortment of foreign items there. Some things I gladly pay a little premium for, other things are a bit nuts so I skip these.
In our last order from this store I had a little treat, Dutch sausage rolls from a known supermarket in Holland. I remember that I was so happy eating them a few times before and I felt a bit like going back to my childhood. But things change, don't they? Prices change, quality changes and in this case the sausage vs bread ratio changed a lot! I don't know when this happened but damn, you can't even call this a sausage roll anymore, djeez, it's more like bread roll with 1/5 filling. Not great! I felt scammed buying this but luckily I managed to control myself by only ordering one pack!
In the end this was just what I needed because it made me go back to making my own sausage rolls again, which I haven't done for several years if I recall correctly. The reason I rarely prep anything with bread is because of the kneading, it's too hard on my back and therefore not a task I love with many good fresh baguette options available for good prices. But you know, a girl has to be smart and find her way around these issues, so I thought of something.
I only remember puff pastry in Holland but that hasn't been the same ever since moving abroad. But here in Spain in the cooling shelves you have ready to use dough, they have a few different sorts and I have only tried puff pastry so far. This time I decided to try the empanada dough as it looks a bit like bread, although having no idea if the taste would be similar to sausage roll bread, I decided it was worth the try with my back. In the end it's the spices that make the taste great, right?
This made following the recipe I used a whole lot easier because now I only had to check the list for the filling, which was very convenient to say the least!
There are tons of different recipes out there and I usually get familiar with one or two and then mix it up to give it my own twist, that is once I made them a few more times.. It was a few years ago since I made them and I yet had to find out if the dough would be good enough as well.
Here's what I used the first batch:
Sorry some things you need to test and taste so I don't measure it, but the things I wrote in units are exact. My boyfriend is not a fan of nutmeg so I already figured it may be a hit and miss but in the end he didn't have any issues.
It's very easy, just mix it up and you have your filling! I actually took a picture of that meat mixed up but I don't think minced meat looks that appealing so you'll have to trust my word on it while I show you the other (better looking) pictures of the process below..
First, I divided the dough into parts and then I rolled them into little balls.
I surely didn't do this for a long time so you'll have to forgive me for the uneven parts and ugly looking rolls the first batch, haha. Practice makes perfect, they say!
I surely didn't get the hang of wrapping yet as you can see, ha! But it was time to put them in the oven and hope for the best. As they aren't too big, I put them on 200 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes to check on them. Then I left them for 5 minutes longer they weren't ready yet.
The recipe mentioned to put some butter on top and cover it with a kitchen cloth to make them soft but that surely didn't work with this dough, I tried but that was pointless. Nevertheless, they were nice!
I had loads of filling left which I wanted to adjust a little but I didn't have more dough so I went to the supermarket the next day to get it and made another batch which I will share another day. Practice helped me improve the recipe already.
Have a lovely weekend!
All pictures above are my own and taken with my Sony RX10 III camera.
