Some Gratitude and a Tray of Chorizo and Onion Pull Apart Rolls

Sometimes when we meet people we have no idea where this first encounter might lead. I've had the good fortune of meeting many generous people, some of whom I haven't met in person but on the Internet - mainly on Facebook. Among these people is Manish, a big hearted fan of food who has made it his mission to ply K and me with goodies whenever he finds someone willing to carry his gifts from London all the way to Mumbai.

Among the many goodies Manish has sent us are some incredibly flavourful Spanish Chorizo sausages. K and I love pork in all its forms and quite high on my list are chorizo sausages, be they the mildly spiced European ones or the rambunctious, tongue tingling, Goan ones. Somehow I manage to always have one version or the other in my fridge.

K loves bread and I try to bake some at home whenever I can. I'd just made a batch of pull apart rolls with a Pesto Rosso filling yesterday and looking at the rich red paste I suddenly thought these rolls would be quite fabulous if I stuffed them with some chorizo and grilled onions. I couldn't wait for today to begin.

We chopped up an entire Spanish chorizo into smallish pieces.

Then K rendered the fat off the chorizo in a non stick pan. The Spanish ones do not release great amounts of fat like the Goan ones so we didn't need to drain off any fat. We added sliced onions to the pan and let them grill nicely along with the chorizo till the onions began to brown. We spread the cooked chorizo and onion mixture on a plate to cool.

And then I used this mixture to stuff my Chorizo and Onion Pull Apart Rolls.

Here's the recipe for the basic pull apart roll. You can fool around with the fillings as you like. This bread is ridiculously easy to bake and so far I have done them with green pesto and cheese, pesto rosso, marmalade, Nutella and now, with chorizo :)

As we bit into the soft rolls with fat morsels of chorizo and the incredibly flavourful onions I gave thanks to the forces that be for giving me friends like Manish.

Marathon Bloggers Project 52

Pork Sausage and Vegetable Stew

My mom brought these incredibly delicious pork sausages from Kalman's Meat Shop in Kolkata. My friend Kalyan had blogged about it many months ago and now this shop is like a cult destination for many pork lovers I know! Goodies from Kalman are now mandatory every time mom comes for a visit.

We had the sausages plain pan fried for breakfast a few mornings ago and the first thing I thought was that they would make an awesome stew.

Among the other goodies I had stashed away was a packet of spice mix for a Spanish Pork Casserole, brought by my friend Appu. Now was a good time to use it.

For the stew or casserole I used 6 of the plump sausages with assorted vegetables including broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, potatoes and onions.

Here are these delicious babies snuggled up on a dinner plate. Yes, that's how large they are!

In a large cooking pot I heated some oil and sautéed the vegetables. Cut the vegetables into bite sized pieces so they cook fast. I added about 8 cloves of garlic too. Once the vegetables began to brown a little I added the sausages. They tend to pop out of the casings once they get hot but the good thing is that they didn't disintegrate.

Over the sautéed vegetables and sausages I sprinkled the spice mix and added a generous amount of water. After giving the whole thing a good stir I covered the pot and let it cook. The sausages cook very quickly, I just needed to ensure that the vegetables were done too. A sprinkling of fresh ground pepper at the end was all I needed to add.

I would have liked to add a good splash of red wine but I didn't have any... at least not any that I could cook with!  The original recipe on the packet requires one to sprinkle the spice powder over raw pork, add a splash of oil and a cup of water, then put into the baking bag provided and subsequently baked for about 45 mins. I decided to simply make a stove top stew since I was using sausages and not pork chunks.

You can make this sort of a stew quite easily even without the convenience of the spice mix packet. Use tomato puree, a couple of finely chopped onions, salt, pepper, and a generous dash of mixed dried herbs. A good splash of red wine will be great. Dilute a bit of white flour in water and add it to thicken the gravy, if you like. Finish with butter or a dash of cream before serving.

Here's my Pork Sausage and Vegetable Stew done in about 30mins. And now that I have shared it with you all, I'm off to eat :)