Porky Pinwheel Loaf

NAME: _Porky Pinwheel Loaf

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INGREDIENTS/UTENSILS:
350g plain flour
210m water
1 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar

100g - 150g pulled pork
1 small onion
1 cup gravy
1 tbsp leaf lard
1 tbsp plain flour
salt and pepper to taste

around 50g - 100 cheddar cheese

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METHOD:
Make up a bread dough. (To tell the truth, I use my bread maker and let it mix and knead the dough for 25 minutes. Far easier than breaking out the mixer and dough hooks.) Knead the dough and shape into a ball, brush with olive oil, place in a bowl that has also been brushed with olive oil, cover with a tea towel and allow to sit until it's doubled in size.

While the dough is rising, dice the onion small, fry in lard until glassy. Add the shredded pork, allow to fry until it slightly colours, then sprinkle with the flour, allow to fry for another minute or so, then add the gravy and enough water to cover the meat mixture. Allow to thicken to a quite solid consistency, and set aside.

Dice the cheddar 3mm - 5mm cubes.

Take the dough and roll out in a rectanguar sheet about as wide as a loaf tin and 1.5 - 2 times as long. Spread the pork filling almost to the edges, then sprinkle the cheese cubes on, and roll from short side so you finish up with a roll as long as your loaf tin. Wet fingers and seal the seam, place in loaf tin seam side down. Brush top with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, slash top with five or so diagonal cuts.

I'm honestly not sure what temperature I baked this at, because the oven I used had a faulty thermostat and I was adjusting the temperature by guesswork. I'd say 40 minutes at about 180C - 190C if I had to hazard a guess. The loaf should start colouring on top around the 25 minute mark and should be a good shade of brown by 40 minutes, with crust forming along the sides of the loaf inside the tin as well.

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SERVING:
Allow to cool a bit, slice and serve. We served ours with home made baked beans, which was pretty much the perfect accompaniment to the porky deliciousness.

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NOTES:
I suppose you could do the same with a savoury mince mixture or any kind of reasonably dry pie filling. I just had some pulled pork from a slow roast a few nights earlier, and I wanted that bread / pork flavour, and I'd never made a savoury rolled loaf like this before, and the moment was ripe. Honestly, one of my happiest moments.

The pulled pork was a rolled roast with skin on, I untied it, and rubbed it with a pulled pork style powder, rolled it back up, and let it marinate in plastic in the fridge for 24 hours before roasting it over the course of about six hours. The powder was made by blitzing a tablespoon each of salt, raw sugar, and dried garlic flakes, half a tablespoon of coriander seeds, and half a teaspoon each of ground nutmeg and dred chilli flakes, al together in one of those whizzy spice benders that they sell on the pretext that they're actually coffee grinders. (Blergh, don't even go there, they make shithouse coffee for brewing because they always grind about half the coffee into dust and the other half stays as hug chunks.)

The pork gravy was made of all the trimmings and pan juices of the pork, and was left to set in the fridge once it was cooled, so I could lift all the lard off and just use the gelatinous sauce. The pork for this recipe was a handful of the leftover pulled pork shreds, chopped shorter.

Normally I'd have mead bread dough with baker's flour but I wanted the crumb to be a bit less cohesive and short, so it was more like yeast-risen scone dough. As it turns out, that was just about the perfect texture. Sometimes, you just get lucky...

What would have made this better? Beer. Flat beer instead of water in the dough mix, I reckon that would have carried off prizes at the local cookery club... And a sharper flavoured cheese.

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ENJOY!