West Virginia

My goodness, I’ve been tardy in updating you on our adventure.  I was out of town two weekends in a row, so our Monday night meals were more haphazard than usual.  But finally we tackled West Virginia!

And it wasn’t easy, either.  Our trusty Heritage of America cookbook listed only “chutney” as a West Virginian recipe, and offered nothing to serve with the chutney!  A Google search didn’t come up with a lot more.  Finally, though, Chef found out about pepperoni rolls, which apparently are offered at convenience stores all over West Virginia.  Recipes varied, but basically it was to put pepperoni in bread dough and bake.

Well, that part was easy.  I used my favorite pizza dough recipe (see below), divided it into eight equal pieces, and rolled each piece into a rectangle.  I layered the pepperoni on top, and then rolled it up.  That’s all that most recipes said to do, but I also brushed it with an egg wash (beaten egg diluted with water) and sprinkled grated Parmesan cheese on top.  We thought these might be a little dry (we were right) so Chef made a really amazing tomato sauce to go with it.  (He made a ton, and I used it the next night for pizza and the night after that for spaghetti!)

I decided that these are okay for a snack, but it just didn’t seem substantial enough for a meal.  And maybe the sauce should go inside along with the pepperoni.  But then you kind of have a calzone, which is different.  So maybe it’s okay to just make these with the dough and meat and dip them in the sauce.

To make it easier, I’m sure you could use frozen bread dough or canned crescent rolls or something.  In fact, several of the recipes said to do just that, but I wanted to make the dough from scratch.  Here’s the dough recipe I used, from Betty Crocker:

1 Tbsp active dry yeast

1 cup warm water

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups flour

Dissolve yeast in water in large bowl.  Stir in sugar, salt, oil, and 1 cup of flour.  Beat until smooth.  Stir in enough remaining flour to make a dough that is easy to handle.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface.  Knead about 5 minute or until smooth and elastic.  Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up.  Cover and let rise in warm place 30 to 40 minutes or until almost double.

(I baked the pepperoni rolls at 375 for about 20 minutes.)