Ric Seaberg's Holiday Party Meat Rolls

I miss the bakery. The products, the smells, the people. But I don't miss that rising at 2 or 3am, after maybe 5 hours of sleep, and then slamming strong coffee, and telling my staff of 10 or so what to do for the next 8 hours. And other stuff. When I sold my store, in 1995, after 20 years of being in business, as president of Richard's Bakery Inc., and chief sheet pan washer, my friends and customers would say to me, "Haha Ric, you'll never be able to stay out of bakery business", to which I would politely smile, but inside, I was saying, "Haha, pretty damn sure I can". 

But I do really miss making that stuff, and I find myself baking at home, well, probably more than most folks. One product that was unique to my store in Portland, in those days, was a popular product we called "meat rolls", and with my sweetest and most important daughters, Stacey and Amy, requesting me to make some for this holiday season, I bought some ingredients, and cranked up the kitchen for a little practice session. This is a good looking and tasty hors doeuvre I'm certain your fam will love:

Meat Roll Recipe

Ingredients:

Meat mixture:

2 lbs lean ground beef

1-1/2 cups fine bread crumbs

4 whole eggs

3/4 cup water

2 tsp granulated garlic or garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

Healthy splash Tabasco 

Healthy splash Worchestershire sauce

Other Ingredients:
Puff pastry

Dried parsley

Variety of dipping sauces 

Mix all above ingredients (meat mixture) in one stage. It works best to add your wet ingredients to the mixing bowl first, then bread crumbs, then other stuff. Mix thoroughly but not long. Consistency should be such that you can press meat mixture out of a pastry bag with a 1" hole cut in the bag. If you love spicy food, add more Tabasco! But I prefer to provide my guests with a variety of dipping sauces, including some really spicy ones

Method:

Flour your work area ( I use a wood "tableboard" by Spinella) and add your piece of puff pastry

Your puff should be cold but not frozen. Put any unused puff back in the fridge for now. 

Pin your puff out such that it is about 1/16 of an inch thick. If you buy Pepperidge Farm Puff, the way it's folded will inform you how to use the 3 sections for your meat roll mixture. This next picture shows the pastry fully pinned and ready for the meat mixture.

Brush off all the flour, cut the dough as shown with a knife (not serrated) or a pastry wheel.

Cut the end of a cloth pastry bag to leave an approximate 1" diameter hole. Add some of your meat mixture to the pastry bag, and pipe it onto the pastry as shown.

Whip a couple of eggs in a little bowl with a hand whip or fork, and brush it onto the pastry below the meat as shown. Then roll up the dough as shown below, and press the rolls lightly to seal the pastry to the egg wash.

Brush off any excess flour. Then cut the rolls in about 1" pieces with a French knife or pastry wheel, egg wash them well as they sit right up against each other, and add dried parsley for color. Then pick them up and put them on your baking pan. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and bake for approx 19 minutes.

Suggested sauces:

Barbecue sauce

Ketchup

Ketchup with hot sauce added

Sweet mustard

Sweet hot mustard

Ranch dressing

Blue cheese dressing

Thousand island dressing

Frenchs mustard

Horseradish sauce or mustard

Chinese hot mustard

Wasabi sauce or mustard

Note: This is my recipe, and it works great for me. But maybe you'd like to try something different, like adding a portion of pork sausage or another change to the recipe. Go for it! Have a great party!!!

Ric

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