Don’t Like Pig Intestine?
New Zealand sausage rolls are for you.
By Lindsay Sterling
Upon learning that I write this
Immigrant Kitchens column, my new neighbor, Ursula, said, “You’ve got to call
my friend from New Zealand. She brings these sausage roll things to every
party, and they’re delicious.”
-- What about sausage could not be delicious? I wondered. It was
the wrong question. I tried to take it back, but it was out there, twisting in
the wind, the answer flying to it like bugs into bug tape. The sausage casing, which -- let’s face it -- is pig intestine, which is practically the bowel, is
something about sausage that is not delicious. It’s gross! Great. Now I’m going
to be sued for ending the long and prosperous sausage-eating careers of Portland
Phoenix readers everywhere. But lo! There on the horizon is a farm on a hill. There,
New Zealander, Briana Robillard, is going to show us all how to fix this, and
we’ll all be eating sausage with glee again in no time.
New Zealand sausage rolls, a food
traditionally served to sheep shearers after a hard day’s work, are basically
seasoned loose sausage wrapped inside pie dough into neat little bites and
baked. No intestine folks. Americans have their own version of sausage rolls --
pigs in a blanket -- but these seem to be missing the point entirely. The
ground meat is doubly contained – first in Vienna sausage casing, then in
dough. Who needs extraneous intestine in their diet? It’s not like we eat the intestine
for the flavor. All we want is containment capability! And pie dough has it.
As ubiquitous as sausage rolls are
in New Zealand, Briana Robillard had never actually made them herself before
coming to the U.S. “I didn’t ever cook sausage rolls there because I never
needed to. They’re everywhere. It’s like French fries are here.” It wasn’t until she was actually sheering
alpaca at a farm in Freeport that she realized that there likely would be no
sausage rolls available. She thought, “You have to feed sausage rolls to
shearers!” And made a mad dash for the Internet and the grocery store.
She put ground pork in a mixing
bowl with egg, breadcrumbs, milk, scallion, sage, basil and salt. Then in a
separate bowl mixed flour, salt, butter and water into dough with her hands.
Though she wasn’t a highly trained baker, she rolled that dough out with
complete confidence. She was the type of person who buys her flour in 30 pound
sacks. She got some of her confidence from thirty years of farming and home
cooking experience, and some from this cooking motto: “If you feed it to hungry
people, it’ll be fine.” She cut the dough into a large rectangle and put the
meat filling in a line down the long middle. Then she folded the dough over the
meat like a business letter. Slicing across the roll turned the roll into a whole
bunch of bite-sized pieces, which she placed on a greased sheet pan and baked
in the oven.
Though my daughters and I sheered no sheep, Briana offered us as many of these golden little meat nuggets as we liked, right off the cooling rack. “Mm! Tastes like pot-pie!” My seven-year-old said. Nothin’ like meat in pie crust.
Then Briana proceeded to make a dessert called strawberry pavlova, which is basically a meringue raft slathered with two inches of whipped cream and topped with a mountain of sliced fresh strawberries. We’ve been saved.
copyright Lindsay Sterling 2013
