ONE of the classic Christmas dishes (at least in my house) is the embutido. A few weeks back, we were invited to a party and embutido was served. What passes for embutido these days is the small 1 to 2 inches cylinders and a length six inches of ground pork wrapped in aluminum foil and steamed till done.
Previously, embutido was also cylindrical, but of a larger radius, longer of about 10 inches, also steamed or baked and wrapped in pano pano, the part of the pig which looks like a sheet of paper but which actually lard.
The meat roll is the soul of simplicity to make. As long as you have the ingredients, you are good to go. As for the ingredients, you may use a main meat or chicken or pork or a combination of pork and chicken. I omitted turkey, because this meat is not as available as pork or chicken.
Using only pork, the following is my own recipe:
Ingredients
1. 1 1/2 kilo of ground pork, lean with just a hint of fat in the grind. You may use half half of pork and chicken, or you may try any other proportion which you are comfortable with.
2. 1 1/2 cups of onions, finely minced.
3. A large green bell pepper, a large carrot both to make 1 cup, finely minced.
4. 1/2 cup of pickle relish and a 1/2 cup of frozen green peas.
5. 1/2 (more if you like raisins) cup of cut up raisins.
6. 1 cup of coarsely grated cheese.
7. 3 eggs.
8. 1/2 tablespoon pepper and salt (to taste).
9. 3 tablespoons of liquid seasoning. (use any of your faves.)
10. 1 cup bread crumbs or less, if you think it is too much.
11. (do not include this in the mix) have ready quartered hard boiled eggs and jullienned chorizos de bilbao or halved vienna sausages.
Instructions:
1. Put in all of the named ingredients in a large bowl and mix all of them thoroughly and well. Use you hands gently.
2. Divide the mix into 3 and put on 3 sheets of aluminum foil large enough to roll the meat in and to twist the ends (if you dont have pano pano).
3. Slightly flatten the meat and line up the center with hard boiled eggs and viennas or chorizos.
4. Now roll up the loaf and cylinder it with the middle filled with chorizo and hardboiled egg. Keep the centerfill in the center of the roll.
5. Arrange the wrapped embutido in either a steamer or a baking pan (if you will bake. Steam for 60 minutes or bake for the same amount of time.
6. Remove the embutido and let cool down. Chill in the fridge. You may slice and fry or you may serve the embutido sliced and cold.
You may serve embutido with either a white sauce (bechamel) or plain old catsup. Use any sauce which you like. Any left overs (none in our house) can be fried and served in a sandwich.
Also previously, I bought pano pano from my meat suki and used that to hold the ground meat's shape. After which the loaf was baked.
When I make embotido these days, i still go to the wet meat market and buy my wrapper, it used to be that these was very available in the market, but these days also the supermarkets have it.
In truth, this is a very healthy dish, because only lean meat was ground and hardly any fat at all was used. This would be more so, if you steamed and or baked the rolls.
However you make your rolls, keep them a bit thicker and a bit longer, that it will pretty on a serving plate.
In the meantime, keep on planting and... Bon appetit!