Making Sausage in Brioche
This is a sort of high-end French pig-in-a-blanket. It makes a fabulous light dinner or picnic along with a little salad, grilled vegetables and cold beer. Here I made mine in a pullman pan since I sourced a large garlic sausage and I like the way it looks: the large circle with the square. You can use different sausages if you like of course. A large kielbasa works nicely. If you want to forego the form and hard-to-source encased meats you can just use standard 1″ sausages, roll them in thinner pieces of brioche and bake them free form. They taste just as good!
For best results choose French or German-style sausages with garlic. Italians are a little much for this preparation. Whatever you buy make sure they’re fresh or pre-cooked fresh sausages versus cured (salami is too tough for this application). The sausage must be cooked before you assemble your roll.
So, to start, get your ingredients together. I buttered a Pullman pan. Yes you can use cooking spray here, reader Lee, but butter gives a better color.
To prepare the roll I floured a wooden surface…
…then turned the cold brioche dough out onto it and floured that as well.
Roll your dough until it’ss about 18 inches long and 6 inches wide. Roll the sheet as evenly as you can as this will help the sausage stay centered. Paint a stripe of egg wash down the center and flour it.
Next, put on the cooked sausage. I used the better part of two 1-pound, 2-inch-wide French-style garlic sausages and kept the trimmings for sandwiches.
Now paint egg wash on the sausage..
…and flour it. What does all this flour and egg do? It adheres the dough to the sausage so gaps don’t form around it as it bakes. Gaps don’t look very good. Makes sure you get the flour over the whole surface.
Fold the dough over the ends of the sausage, then fold the top half down. Paint some more egg wash on.
Fold the bottom up and you’re done!
Place the roll seam side-down in the pan, put on the lid and let it rise about an hour and a half.
Until it looks about like this. Oh, and you’ll want to be preheating your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit as the brioche rises.
Bake it about half an hour until it looks like this.
Turn it out right away to cool a bit.
Slice when it’s still warm and serve. In this fashion is great.
Last night the weather was perfect here. The dinner, garnished with a few fresh tomatoes and greens from the garden, just about matched!
Are you rethinking that title at all? }=>
Why, something wrong with it? A typo maybe?
Looks great!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, Melody!
– Joe
Well, I’m not a meat eater but I could probably figure something else for that technique; intriguing.
If you can’t get to Chicago, here’s a place many of my meat eating friends get sausage – http://creolecountry.com/CREOLECOUNTRY/HOME.html – boudin, pork tasso, green onion, crawfish, and ‘gator too. I do warn you, it’s one of those sites where they foolishly add music.
Wonderful, Naomi! Thanks for the resource!
– Joe
Rainey, I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only person to look twice, think 3 times, and not post the obvious reply to the header 🙂
I’m sorry, are encased meats funny to you people?
– Joe
I guess just those of us with second grade senses of humor. ::shuffles uncomfortably::
Yeah, uh huh. Apology accepted.
😉
– Joe
Please feel free to delete anything I wrote that is an unwelcome distraction. ::begins the slow march to the principal’s office::
Hehe…I’m teasing you of course. 😉
Joe, don’t fret over those with dirty minds. Until I read the posts, the suppositions never crossed my mind.
I was thinking where I could source the best sausage for this recipe.
Love your site..have had much success with your recipes.
Thanks, Carla. Glad to know there are at least a few of us out here who can manage to keep our minds out of the gutter!
– Joe
You’d have had to use four 1″ sausages to get the same amount of meat as in the 2″ sausage of the same length. That would be a cool-looking cross-section.
GREAT point, Suzanne. Still it seems to me like four sausages might be too much in here. I’d do three at the most.
Thanks, Suzanne!
– Joe
This looks amazing. Will have to give it a try!
Let me know how it goes, Rachel!
– Jim
Ahem.
‘that’s what she said’
that is all :p
CfromDU
It would be you, CFDU!
– Joe
This is so cool, not only have I never done anything like this I have never even heard of it being done! I would have thought it would either be a soggy mess around the wienie or the wienie would be a desiccated log. I love the idea and am going to give it a shot. The grandkids will be amazed! I have said many many times but THANKS!
Sure thing! And let me know how it goes. Send pictures!
– Joe