Directions

For the sake of Diversity — the goddess of our age — made some Bollo Preñao by the general guidelines of Jeffrey Weiss’ “Charcuteria” book.

It shall remain a mystery of ages, just how many there were geniuses who came up with the simple idea of putting a sausage in some dough and making a “dish” out of it. As everyone knows, some of such products truly belong to the “elite” category, most – just a snack. While making the bollo’s, I’ve realized that I do not recall ever eating anything in this category since coming to the U.S. in 1998… Although it’s sold everywhere, for some reason, I just never did…
Growing up in the “Soviet Ukraine,” it was different; a “sosiska v tisti” was a cheap and a rather decent snack from a local “gastronom” on the way home from school or between endless soccer games.
As for this one:
Instead of using dry-cured or semi-cured sausage – as Weiss recommends – I went with his simple, basic, good fresh chorizo, “Chorizo Fresco.” It is a quite decent fresh sausage for all occasions, equally good when grilled, pan-fried, or – the way I’ve depleted about half of the bunch– just fried around the wood in the fireplace. I was off from work, with plenty of reading to do…Heaven!
The recipe is simple: on 1 kg of meat (I just took two boston butts, removed the necks for coppa’s and let the rest become chorizo), 2% of fresh garlic on 1.8% salt (Weiss recommends 2%). Diced meat with crushed garlic and salt went through 8mm plate, mixed with dry white wine (50ml per 1kg), 1% of each pimenton dulce and picante, 0.2% oregano. Then – stuffed into hog casings. Due to the cold weather, I kept them hanging for around 24 hrs in the sun-room.

The dough was made strictly by Weiss recipe. Once more, it’s very simple, but good base product, especially for someone of very limited acquaintance with bakery.. The only deviation from the instructions: I’ve baked the end-product at 375F, not 450F.
Hence, I’ve mixed 325gr of bread flour with 3gr.dry yeast, 6gr. sugar, and 5 g of honey. After yeast activated, added 500 gr. Bread flour, mixed\kneaded. After around 30 minutes of rest, added 15gr of salt, kneaded for around 10 minutes. Then I let it rise in olive-oil-greased bowl (covered by a damp cloth) in warm oven for around 30-40 minutes. Afterwards, I divided the dough into 7 parts, formed into “mini-baguettes”, let them rest and rise for another half-of-hour.

Then – staffed still warm pouched chorizos and let the product rest for another 20 minutes.

Bollos were baked in the pre-heated oven on the top rack with a water-filled-pen the bottom rack. At 375F, it took around 25 minutes.
For results, I often go for the opinion of my children. While daughter gave me her “so-so,” son said that he could “eat this every day.” Enough said…

In retrospect, they should be better if the chorizo was carefully fried, not poached. If there will be a next time, I’ll try it that way…