Dutch Sausage rolls. Saucijzenbroodje

Southwest 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first.

Slight or moderate.

Showers.

Good.

Nightshifts suck. I don’t mind working at night and I don’t have problems sleeping. But I have problems cooking. Basically everything is upside down, or should be. You have breakfast at 6.30pm, your lunch at 1 am and your supper at 8 am. But somehow I cant eat things like curries at 8 am. Or follow it with a glass of wine. Drinking in the morning feels wrong, and eating a hearty meal as well.

So I put some energy into my lunch. But this is normally something which can be micro waved. So I tend to cook several portions and freeze them. Meaning my freezer is overflowing with a variety of (and of course me being me: unlabelled) food portions. Another problem is that my Vegetarian children went off Vegetarianism, so I bought sausages and meat. And now they are back to being Vegetarian, meaning that I have to finish that all, despite not wanting to.

I am not complaining, it is a good thing that they try again and I don’t mind eating once in a while meat, but it is getting too much now. So the next two lunch recipes will feature meat products, and then I should be back on track. The rest can be frozen for sometimes in the next months.

This month challenge from “Bloggers around the world” is the Netherlands. 

A tricky one for the summer. While the Netherlands has wonderful winter dishes, they are not that good for light meals. And there are few traditional Vegetarian meals. By sheer coincidence my friend from the Netherlands visited me earlier this month and brought with her some cookery books. I already thought about the Dutch sausage rolls; while they are quite substantial, they can be justified as a picnic dish for the summer. In one of her books was a Vegetarian pastry and I tried the filling for the “sausage” rolls. They were nice, but not really traditional.

I also tried the other variety, the Brabantse Worstenbroodjes,  but first of all it is too much work making bread dough just for one portion, and second they kept less fresh than the more common known variety with puff pastry. Which is bizarre since I thought that the bread dough around it will keep it fresher. Nevertheless they are nice as well, just make a “milk” bread dough with egg and butter. Here is what you can expect and the following picture was my outcome.

But if you really want to go full Dutch, use any shop bought puff pastry for a quick “make ahead” lunch treat. The top photo is the full roll, the following picture with the filling is unfortunately of bad quality, but you get the idea.

Do try them, they are very good and the filling can be used for more party sized little crowd pleasers.

Saucijzenbroodje

75gr minced beef

75gr minced fat pork

1 shallot, finely chopped

2 tbsp oats, soaked in a bit of milk (about 1 tbsp), or use soaked breadcrumbs, but oats are better

2 tbsp finely chopped parsley (curly is fine)

1 generous pinch of nutmeg

Salt and pepper, generous

1 tbsp of strong mustard, either the traditional Dutch, or Dijon or a mixture between Dijon and coarse French (which I used)

Half a sheet of puff pastry (since the sheets here are around 300gr, you are aiming for 150gr)

1 small egg, beaten (preferable a quail egg to avoid waste)

Preheat oven to 200 C. Put the chopped onion into a small dish and “wet” it with water. Microwave for 2 minutes until they are soft, but check after 1 minute if there is still some water. Ideally you should aim for them being soft without any visible water left (a few drops are fine), but pay attention, they burn easily.

Let cool completely and then mix with the two meats, the parsley, the oats with the milk, the spices. Use your hands to mix everything thoroughly and try a tiny pinch (preferable from a bit of beef, but you wont die if you eat a morsel of pork). Add more salt and pepper if necessary. It needs to be generously spiced, it is perfect if you think: Oh, that was one small pinch too much.

If you don’t use a quail egg, keep 2 tbsp of the beaten egg for the glazing and pour the rest into the meat mixture.

Roll out the puff pastry and brush with the mustard. Try to form a sausage with the meat mixture (works better with wet hands) and lay in the middle. Put first the short sides over and then both length sides. The seams are on top.

Brush with the egg and bake for 20minutes in the oven. Leave to cool but don’t put it into the fridge, cover it with a tea towel and pack the next morning into a tupper dish.

Eat with a portion of salad and Piccalilli if you like. Roast potatoes will transform it into a full blown meal.

Smakelijk eten!