Sometimes. In the Winter. You need something comforting. Something that makes you feel at home. I had a need for something like that a week ago and so I came up with this creation:
Cinnamon roll... Not!
I call it the savory roll. It is a brioche dough which is rolled around pork sausage, pesto sauce, and mozzarella. Oh and there is gravy obviously. This dish was a little bit of work, but my goodness was it delicious. Betsy and I ate them for an entire week and we never got sick of them. Let’s make them.
Step one is making the dough, which you need to start at least the day before, but could do a few days before whenever you have time.
Brioche Dough (from “Artisan Bread in 5 minutes“) I would use this exact same dough to make cinnamon rolls.
- 3/4 Cups warm water
- 3/4 Tablespoon yeast (3/4 packets)
- 2 Teaspoons salt
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 1/4 Cup honey
- 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
- 3 3/4 Cups all-purpose flour
Combine every ingredient except flour and mix well. Then mix in the flour. The dough will be very moist – gooey even. Let this dough sit and rise at room temperature for 2 hours and then into the fridge for at least a few hours, but ideally overnight. You will not be able to use this dough unless it is cold.
Dough. No kneading necessary.
One more thing you can do the night before is make the pesto. You can, of course, make this the day of also.
An confession: I don’t have a set recipe for pesto. Everytime I make it, it is a bit different. It usually involves a handful or two of basil leaves, a Tablespoon or two of pine nuts, a clove of garlic, salt and pepper, and enough olive oil to bring it all together into a pesto like paste.
Quick pesto is easy.
The morning of you are going to need to make the pork filling. You could, of course, use beef or turkey but I really think pork gives it a nice flavor. I started with a little over a pound. I also added about 1/2 of a chopped onion, some chopped fresh sage, and salt and pepper. I added the sage just because I had it. You could also add dry spices like tarragon, basil, oregano, etc.
When you are done with the pork, don’t wash this pan. We are going use the drippings for gravy.
This will produce the smell of breakfast.
Take your dough out of the fridge and on a well floured surface roll it into a long rectangle. As you can see, mine was probably 20 inches by 16 inches.
A pretty big rectangle.
Then layer on your toppings. Put down all of your pesto, then your ground pork, and finally your cheese.
Go crazy.
Rolling this thing is a bit of a trick. Roll it from left to right or right to left, whatever is easiest for you. If your dough is sticking to the table, go slowly, and use a dough scraper or butter knife to release the dough from the table.
A bit tricky. Go slow. Patience is a virtue.
Eventually, you will end up, hopefully, with a tube of rolled awesomeness. Cut this with a serrated knife into eight even sections.
Eight is a good number.
Turn these guys upright in a buttered dish and let them rise for about an hour. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 375.
Awesome.
These guys need to bake for a long time. About an hour. I baked mine for 45 minutes and the outer buns were done, but the interior ones were still a bit soggy in the middle.
While those are cooking, let’s talk gravy. You should have a decent amount of fat left over from the pork and probably even some leftover ground pork. Get all of that in your pan and put it on medium heat. One tablespoon at a time you want to add flour in an equal proportion of fat.
It doesn’t have to be exact. I guessed that I had about 5 Tablespoons of fat from the pork, so I added 5 Tablespoons flour. Stir this together and the flour will start to cook slowly and brown. This, my friends, is a roux.
After about 5 minutes, you will end up with this:
A dark roux.
Then, very slowly, whisk in about 2 cups of milk. There will be steam. Whisk furiously. Try to whisk out any clumps that form. I added about 1/4 of a cup at a time and eventually ended up with this lovely, creamy gravy. Salt and pepper to taste.
Gravy is my favorite thing in the world. Officially.
After an hour, pull out those buns. They will look like, well, breakfast perfection.
After a long bake.
Serve up one of these and ladle plenty of gravy over the top.
Yes.
This is some of the best breakfast I can imagine. The roll is flaky and light and a bit sweet. It holds up nicely though to the spiced pork and pesto. The cheese holds everything together and the gravy is well, gravy.
This is real comfort food in my opinion.
Everyone should have this recipe. I would love it if you used the below icons to share it with the rest of the Internet.
Holy cow, that looks delicious but oh so not good for me. I am so jealous. I am drooling right now.
Dear lord that breakfast turns me on. I too cant eat that stuff, but i want to be around it..a lot
It’s brunch ladies! Sometimes you have to go crazy. :)
Also, these aren’t actually as heavy as they look. The dough is really light and fluffy. Not saying it is the healthiest, but it’s not as heavy as it looks and it is darn good!
I like the recipe, I am quite comfortable with Pesto, Pork bit and the Sauce, my baking seem to always have a strong aroma of yeast and so I don’t venture much into baking, (any recommendations are welcome) however, I have to try this.
I have one small query on Brioche Dough recipe you mentioned.
How much is 1/2 sticks unsalted butter? (weight in grams could help):->
cheers
@AM
Definitely don’t worry about the aroma of yeast with this dough… the honey and everything in it give a real sweet flavor. You can’t taste yeastiness at all.
Sorry about the 1/2 stick thing… I try to avoid doing that but sometimes I mess up. 1/2 stick is 4 Tablespoons or about 56 grams of butter.
Nick, if I weren’t married and you weren’t attached, I would propose to you right here and now. Hey, I wonder if anyone’s ever gotten proposed to on his/her blog for real? That would be an interesting factoid (not to mention a cool human-interest story in People magazine).
Anyway. Excellent recipe. Wish I lived next door to you.
I’m drooling here. Must. Have. One. Now!
if i made that dish, my jeans couldn’t even exist in the same room as me. which would be ok, because i would just buy new ones so i could keep eating those rolls. seriously, those look a-mazing.
I just bought that cookbook & was having difficulty deciding what to do 1st.. until your post. These look soooo great. Thanks for sharing your recipe & photos. ;o}
these look so good. maybe i’ll try to healthy them up a bit by using turkey sausage and maybe some wilted spinach- but the gravy must remain the same.
what a great idea- savory rolls, and gravy instead of glaze.
Those savoury rolls look so tasty and good!
HAY!! THESE ARE AWESOME!!
I know this because I made them yesterday, and they rocked my world.
I did use turkey sausage. Still Great. I cut mine a bit smaller, and got more than 8 out of my batch. So HA! I GOTS MO!
I don’t have a digital camera, (i know, i know, how 1998 of me) but I did take a picture with the my trusty camera phone. Is that lame? Wait, don’t answer that. They were picture perfect- possibly prettier than yours, FYI.
Thanks for the recipe- and also- did you hear your shout out on The Soup? Well it wasn’t a direct shout out to Macheesmo Food Blog, but Joel McHale did use the word machismo as an adjective- it was pretty neat- I thought to myself, surely Nick heard this…
we made these this afternoon and they were one of the most delicious things i’ve ever eaten. we also made individual rolls in ramekins, which were the cutest individual meals and such a great idea for part of a hearty winter dinner–a salad, soup and one of these! thanks for the recipe–you’ve inspired us to try others. we even tried making one with a curry cheese stuffing based on your brioche recipe. everything was delicious.
I made these for a mother’s day brunch on Sunday, and they were awesome. I don’t really get to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I’m not very proficient or confident at cooking. Your instructions, however, were so clear and thorough that I didn’t feel intimidated by this recipe at all. Thanks for sharing this deliciousness in a way that is accessible to someone as inept in the kitchen as I am. I am looking forward to trying more of your recipes.