Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Saucijsjes- No. I did not just sneeze

I think you already know that I hail from a Dutch community. If you didn't, now you do. And  two of the staples in our diet are meat and carbs. Fatty meats and lard ridden carbs to be exact. However, I promise this won't involve any lard.

This Christmas I decided to make my own Saucijesjes, or Pig-in-the-Blankets. I usually buy the frozen ones and bake them up. They are always great too, and I have no problem doing that, but I wanted to try this. So here we are on my maiden pig making journey. I have done each portion of these at one time or another with our school group for our annual Tulip Festival, but never the whole process by myself.
So here we go!

The dough:
3 cups of flour or more (you'll need a little more)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
Mix.
With a pastry blender or a fork, blend in 1 cup Crisco (or lard if that's what you're in to)
Once that is blended nicely- to resemble corn meal or just fine crumbles,
add 2 eggs, beaten
and 1 cup milk.
Mix this all together and chill until ready to use.





Now for the star. The sausage/beef mixture.
This is where I lack, my grandma gave me the front of her recipe card and not the back. That's where the meat recipe is. However, I just go into our local Dutch meat market and purchase that, so I didn't need it. I promise to get that and add it in here, but for now, here is a link to the place where I get the meat! Perhaps if you call it in, they'll send it to you.

Here is how I make my "pigs."
I had about 6lbs of meat because I doubled the recipe, this one should use about 3lbs.
Press meat mix into a pan (9x13) Using a knife, slice into 1"x3" pieces. I like to chill that meat at this point so that it really holds the shape.


 Let the fun begin!!!
Take a baseball sized section of dough to begin and roll roughly into a rectangle shape.
Set the pig on one end, cut long strips for the width of that. Then roll until the meat is covered and cut dough there.
 

Smooth out the edges and just try to make it all closed in and look pretty. As pretty as a pig-in-the-blanket can look.



Freeze them now. I don't know why, but they are just better if you freeze them. And despite it being 10* outside, your garage will not be enough to freeze them. I'm just saying.
Place on a baking sheet either covered with paper bags- to absorb the grease, or a baking stone.
Brush the tops with egg whites.
Bake at 350* for appx 1 hour.


The finished product! mmmmm!

 
(this makes just over 2 dozen saucijsjes, depending on how big you make them)

I hope you enjoy our little Dutch tradition! These go great with soup or even for breakfast!



5 comments:

Diane said...

I am impressed!!!!!

I am going to send this to a girlfriend of mine that would love this recipe. :O)

Jensamom23 said...

This looks like something my son would love! Thanks.

Ashli said...

First of all, I so think Elfis and Buddy would have many stories to share about their "shelf" observations!
Secondly, that recipe looks too good for someone who is on a low carb diet I am thinking I could just eat the middle out of it!
Yum!

I have done zero baking this month because of my diet, but I am thinking of doing cookies tomorrow with my daughter because it is tradition! Maybe I will have just one!

Duane Scott said...

How do you pronounce that? lol.

mschumacher73 said...

I'd love to have the meat recipe :)