August 05, 2006
Rye Bundles
When I happened upon this recipe, I thought immediately of my wee wifey. I expect it to make her cringe. The nursing homw where she is employed has changed hands about once a year in the time she's been there, and changed its name once along the way. The food service menu remains unchanged, dating back to the time when people who would appreciate a liverwurst and onion sandwich had not yet passed on to another sort of facility. Third shift can always tell when dinner was l&o; everybody's blood sugar is low because they haven't eaten. It isn't really the filling I'm looking to share as much as the packaging. I'd never seen the word "bundle" applied to a filled pastry before, but the Germanic empenada offers a number of possibilities.
1 recipe rye bread dough*
horseradish
mustard
8 - 1 oz slices liverwurst
8 - thin slices onion
8 slices bacon - crisp-cooked, drained and crumbled.
Split the dough eight ways, and roll out into five inch diameter circles. Spread with horseradish (not the pansy hr-flavored mayo) and mustard (original recipe called for the yellow stuff; I'd use Dusseldorff-style) to 1/2" of the edge. Place a slice of liverwurst between the centerline and the edge, and top with onion and crumbled bacon. Fold the dough over, and crimp the edge with a fork or a special single-tasking edge-crimping tool. Cover and let rise for 1/2 hour, then uncover and bake at 375 degrees F (or the equivalent in the temperature scale left over from the French Reign of Terror) for 18 to 20 minutes. Yield - eight bundles (hooda thunk?).
Any filling one might put between slices of rye bread could be substituted if liverwurst and onion don't hum to your crowd. Corned beef, drained kraut, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing would make a reuben bundle. Ground beef and onion lightly browned together and swiss cheese would make something you couldn't exactly call a patty melt bundle. It might, depending on the etymology of the root sandwich, be a joe melt.
*Rye Bread Dough Recipe
These means enough dough to make one loaf. If you are aren't already a baker you probably wouldn't be taking this on anyway. Anything from pumpernickel to your version of Slicing Tomato Hint of Rye would work.
Posted by triticale at August 5, 2006 10:03 AM | TrackBack