In my ongoing research I keep moving forward, or at least try to. Recently I’ve been reviewing my notes on producing an Egg Batter Dough, going back to basics, and looking at what is a batter and what is a dough. Essentially they fall on either side of a continuum of similar products. Chief differences relate to stiffness AND Mixing Method.
Up until now I’ve been focused on the ingredients and how to combine them without actually trying to understand where this item fits into Australian culinary tradition, or on the continuum that lies between Crepe at one end, and Bread at the other.
So what is it, this, CHIKO Roll?
Essentially, it is a meat and vegetable filling, coated in a batter/dough/paste and deep fried.
That is, it is a Risole, or a Croquette. A mighty big one.
Now, as for the filling there’s not much mystery there and we’ve discussed that at length in an earlier posting. The mystery is however is in the dough.
Is it pastry? Like empanada, or Pyroghi. Is it breaded? Like a croquette. Is it a yeast, egg leavened, or chemically leavened dough? Like Pâte à Choux, fritter batter, or soda bread. Is the dough firm, or thick and juicy? Like pasta dough, or corn dog batter. Is it breaded? Like fried risoles, schnitzel, or tempura.
I believe that the dough is a firm dough, leavened with egg, and breaded with fresh, fine, dry breadcrumbs. Their coarseness is dictated by the, “hand painted ends,” which is a fancy way of disguising the fact that the ends are, dipped in egg wash and then in bread crumbs.
Is the rest of the roll also breaded?
Texture. Surface texture is the key.
I believe that the roll IS fully breaded, but then, it is rolled and rolled, and rolled to impress the crumb into the dough and to dust off anything loose.
Now, the dough… Oh what a traumatic line of inquiry that is! We know now, that fried risole dough is short crust pie pastry, which is then dipped and breaded before deep frying in very hot oil. However, CHIKO Roll dough is not a pie/pasty paste. That’s a fact.
Could it be a very thick batter that is then lightly rolled in bread crumbs before frying? The inner texture of the dough does not reflect such a method, as you’d expect to find bread crumb granules dispersed into the batter coating, and inspection does not bear such observation out.
Fried Pasta Dough? Unfortunately the short answer is its too dense. Again, the CHIKO Roll casing is somewhat dense but it doesn’t have the textural qualities of a pasta dough.
It is my belief that the casing is a dough/paste made initially with medium to hard peak egg whites, folded into a well rested flour water egg yolk batter, which is then lightly folded with extra flour to make a soft to medium firmness dough. It is not kneaded or worked extensively, and very likely, uses a low protein flour. The dough is left to rest to allow any gluten bonds to relax. It is either rolled before or after, the rest, so that it is ready for making rolls.
The filling is applied very cold and in a firm consistency to the dough. The dough is rolled up in a continuous roll, then washed with egg wash, rolled thorough a breadcrumb shower then over grating to shake off loose crumbs. further rolling consolidates the bread crumb into the surface of the dough. The roll is then portioned and the last step is, perhaps completed manually – dipping the ends in egg wash and breadcrumb before being sent off to the baking and frying line.
What does all this mean, for the home enthusiast?
Make your filling. Roll it up firmly (like boudin) in plastic wrap and chill it well. Roll out your dough, put the filling in, roll it up and carefully seal the egg washed seam. Dip the roll in egg wash and then lightly roll in very fine, dry bread crumbs. Dust it off, roll it again but don’t egg wash, in bread crumbs, dust and then dip and coat the ends. Fry in very hot oil until golden for immediate use, or until biscuit and then cool and freeze until ready to use.
Make no mistake, getting the dough right is an important aspect. There is no recipe here, yet, because I haven’t sorted it out yet. However, if you are an expat, are overseas, have a desperate urge to make a CHIKO Roll kinda dish because of nostalgia, for God’s sake, don’t use Spring Roll Wrappers! You’d be far, far better off, taking a loaf of unsliced white bread, cutting off the crusts, cutting it lengthwise and then rolling the slices very thin with a rolling pin, and use THAT flat bread as your casing for a CHIKO roll. Its much, much closer to the real thing.
Category Culinary Traditions, From The Kitchen | Tags: , australian, chiko, chiko roll, Croquette, Food Icon, Fool, icon, Kroketten, Risole, roll | Comments Off on The “Humble” Chiko Roll.
From time to time, we find amazing videos of beautifully created food. Sometimes so amazing in fact that we want to watch the videos over and over again. Since we are not always online 24-7 we like to watch videos offline, and cast to our TV. The best way we’ve found to do this is to use 4K Video Downloader. We’ve been using it now for over 4 years and, at least for the Mac Platform, we haven’t found anything better, and today we’ve finally stopped looking. It just works. We’ve never once been nagged for testimonials, or for likes, or for advertising, or money, and as far as we can tell, we haven’t received a barrel load of email notifications either. In essence, its a sweet application, that regularly gets updated, and is free, to good homes. We’re happy with it.
The Chiko Roll is an iconic Australian fast food item. Essentially it is a savoury pastry roll filled with a meat-vegetable-cereal filling and deep fried. Here we examine the history behind the Chiko Roll and explore the culinary traditions that underpin it development and creation.
So, where did he start? What were the origins and culinary traditions that informed this boilermaker and allowed him to develop a roll so popular, yet so baffling, still to this day, to the public and to professional chefs alike?
First, a summary: Francis Gerald McEnroe was a Bendigo boilermaker, that apparently sold fast food items at football matches, saw in 1950 something called a, “Chop Suey Roll,” decided to make it better and revealed this deep fried savoury pastry roll to the public at the Wagga Show.
So, let’s start where most people don’t, with the pastry.
Thus, it would appear that fried pastry was a commonly known culinary concept in both Australia and New Zealand even from the earliest days.
Well, we know that sausage rolls have existed for quite some time, apparently McEnroe, felt his market niche was in a fried roll, so making a Chiko Roll, inspired by the Chop Suey rolls of his competitors was possibly a better option to that of trying to make a better, baked, sausage roll.
But wait, what is this “Chop Suey Roll,” that has been mentioned? Is it a spring roll, or an egg roll? What exactly, and who made them?
It would appear then, that a Chop Suey Roll was a typical Chinese Spring/Egg Roll with Chop Suey as a filling. But wait, there is another roll of interest to us, and this one gives us almost all the ingredients for the filling as well as the dimensions for the final roll, oddly enough.
Also from “Standard Recipes” (pp112-113) we are given a recipe for “Cornish Rolls” which incorporates a firm sausage of minced meat, stock, carrots, turnips, swedes, cooked potatoes, parsnips, onions, salt, pepper, flour-water thickening, short or flaky pastry, and coloring. The pastry is rolled out to 6”-8” wide and length to suit a standard sheet pan. However, the pastry is filled cold, rolled pinched, baked and cut to serving size. It also mentions that cooked meet can be substituted for raw.
So, we sort of have a contemporary method here, plus ingredients close to what McEnroe is said to have used, but its missing the barley, cabbage and celery. In addition to this, it seems that McEnroe modified the pastry dough to include egg, perhaps to improve the frying characteristics of the dough. What ever he did though resulted in a dough of extraordinary and distinctive character.
Compared with the filling for Cornish Rolls, there’s turnips, swedes, potatoes or parsnip included, some missing ingredients. Why these particular ingredients and why put them in? The rice, I think is a tilt at the Chop Suey in the Chop Suey Roll.
Next, if we take a look at a recipe for “Lancashire Hot Pot” (Standard Recipes, p102) we find the ingredients include: stewing meat, haricot beans, barley, onions, leeks or celery, cabbage, carrots, turnips, swedes, salt, pepper, potatoes, and stock.
Now, consider “Scotch Broth” (Standard Recipes, p53) with includes: mutton shanks, mutton broth, pearl barley, flaked oatmeal, carrots, onions, turnips, celery (if available), salt, pepper, and parsley.
All of these recipes have their own typical home equivalent, so it is not unreasonable to consider that the Chiko Roll was originally a stripped down Lancashire Hot Pot – Scotch Broth combo with rice tipped into the mix, and made along the lines of Cornish Rolls. Thus we have mutton, pearl barley, rice rather than oats, onions, cabbage, celery, carrots (for color), salt, and pepper; whilst omitting most of the other root vegetables and the haricot beans.
Thus, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that it is also used here to add something to the filling mix.
The Chiko Roll has a long and distinguished pedigree in Australian and New Zealand cuisine traditions, traditions built on a backbone of a British heritage. There is no doubt that the Chiko Roll was a new twist on original favorites, combining several different dish formulations together in a response to perceived flaws in the Chop Suey Roll. As a result, McEnroe created, what is now undoubtedly one of Australia’s most iconic foods, keeping alive, what is otherwise a forgotten food tradition, that of the fried, pastry rissole.
The Chiko Roll, undoubtedly, is no rissole, nor is it a White Australian knock-off of a Chinese snack. Instead, it is a fried variation on a baked, Cornish Roll, using the ingredients common to it, Lancashire Hot Pot, and Scotch Broth. A hearty, fried savory dough item that springs from a long culinary tradition common to the United Kingdom and it Colonies. This iconic Australian food item deserves our respect, and not our bemused, mystified derision.
So next Australia Day, include the Chiko Roll in your food menu and take a moment in silent respect for Mr. Francis Gerald McEnroe, the genius that is the Chiko Roll, and the humble food traditions from out of which this culinary star was born.
Museum of the Riverina. “The Gold Chiko Roll.” Wagga Wagga City Council. Published 5 June 2007. Web. Accessed 11.11.2016. <http://museumriverina.com.au/collections/highlights/the-gold-chiko-roll#.WCWH6zuBOkp>.
Wikipedia. “Chiko Roll.” Revised 20 September 2016. Web. Accessed 11.11.2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiko_Roll>.
Oulton, Randal. “Chiko Rolls.” CooksInfo.com. Published 17 September 2006; revised 12 März 2010. Web. Accessed 11.11.2016. <http://www.cooksinfo.com/chiko-rolls>.
Abbot, Edward. “The English & Australian Cookery Book” London, UK. Sampson Low, Son and Marston. 1864. Reprint. The Culinary Historians of Tasmania. 2014.
Johnstone, Kathleen B., Self Help Co-op. “Self Help recipes and household hints.” Wellington, NZ. George W. Slade Ltd. 1932.
What motivates you? For me, it trying to track down or develop a recipe for some obscure, shrouded in mister and time, recipe for some such thing. Today, I present for your consideration my efforts to explore the Lufthansa Cocktail Liqueur.
Developed in 1955 by Mampe for Lufthansa, apparently they developed three bottled products, Party, Bitter, and Dry Martini. They were pre-bottled to make it easier to mix in the galley of the Plane. It would appear that “Bitter” is what is known today as the “Classic” mix.
The cocktail, apparently fell out of favour in the mid 80’s but was revived for its 50th Aniversary in 2005 by Berentzen amid a marketing hype of nostalgia. The Berentzen remake contained apparently 12 premium ingredients (Marketers! shades of kfc’s secret original recipe, don’t you think?) and came in at 30% alcohol.
In 2015, ten years later, Small Big Brands gave the drink another makeover, bringing it down to around 15.5% along with adding 6 other mixes to the lineup. It is safe to say that this current incarnation of the Lufthansa Cocktail is a vastly different drink.
According to Lufthansa Magazine, to make a Lufthansa Cocktail you need to mix the liqueur in a 1:1 ratio split. That is, one part liqueur to one part mixer. This mixer can be orange juice & lemon juice, soda water, sekt, or champagne. We also know that the original cocktail liqueur was described as an orange-apricot liqueur. The cocktail that the guest got to drink would vary in alcohol content between 15-21% if we go by Berentzen’s ABV. The Lufthansa Cocktail Recipe typically calls for a 40ml measure of Lufthansa Cocktail Liqueur. Why? Because that is the size of the little single serve bottles of spirits on the plane.
Looking at what Mampe was familiar with, we could hazard a guess that it was some portion of Mampe’s Halb und Halb, plus a small addition of Mampe’s Bittere Tropfen, and then some additions to balance out the sweetness, bitterness, and alcohol content of the final product. Either way, the serving suggestion was on the bottle.
With no listing of the ingredients in Berentzen’s mix we we have no direct link between the current and the past, other than both were 30% abv. But! Take heart, there is enough to put together an educated guess, and combine the ides of the past with the reality of the present.
The current Lufthansa Cocktail Classic offering lists: Rose Vermouth, Bitter Aperitif, Raspberry Eau de vie, and Elderflower, and is described as fruity, fresh, balanced between sweet and dry.
Rosé Vermouth is typically around 17.5% abv (current recipe doing the viral rounds); Bitter Aperitif is around 39% abv (note: older cocktail recipes often refer to using Orange Bitters) – this fits our preferred profile; Raspberry Eau de vie is a liqueur of around 45% abv, and Elderflower is typically used as a syrup, i.e. 0 abv.
In my personal opinion, the balance of this above, strongly shifted towards sweet and fruity, away from orange and apricots and more towards berry fruits. The strongest alcohols here are the bitters and raspberry Eau de vie, which become the dominant portions in this mix. The syrup and the vermouth are both diluents, yet, while the vermouth may perhaps have a strong impact on the flavour profile, we really don’t know in which direction this Rosé Vermouth is profiled.
However, this gives us a starting point for pulling together some target products to mix together.
Belsazar Rosé Wermut; The Bitter Truth Orange Bitters; Prinz Himbeergeist; and Monin Holunderblütensirup.
Let’s add one more product which I will use in our subsequent recipe, Prinz Marillen-Schnapps (clear Apricot Brandy). We’re adding this because orange and apricot are the principle flavours of the original recipe.
The following recipe is my best guess at a Recipe for Lufthansa Cocktail Liqueur (Lufthansa Cocktail Likör) it is not the original recipe, nor is it the recipe for any of the subsequent incarnations, but it is informed by what’s been written on the subject and some educated mixology guesswork. So, enjoy, if you will the only recipe on the web for this bottled cocktail mix.
Lufthansa Cocktail Liqueur Recipe (Lufthansa Cocktail Likör Rezept) 30% abv.
Combine all the ingredients, mix well and bottle. Makes 1 x 750ml batch. Serving Suggestion: To 2 full measures of Liqueur add an equal portion of well chilled Sekt or Champagne. Serve in a tumbler over ice, or in a saucer rimmed with a lemon segment and dipped in sugar. Garnish with a slice of lemon, or a cherry.
It should be said that “Lufthansa Cocktail” is a proprietary name, and the “real” recipe is secret. That being said, anyone who has drunk this cocktail in the last 10 years or so has not drunk the original but one of the authorized variants. Anyone who remembers the original has a dimming memory of something experienced more than 30 years ago.
I have never drunk this cocktail mix, and like many today, have an interest in it only to satisfy the wishes of someone in our parentage who is reminiscing over this once luxury indulgence. So, keep this in mind. What you are making here is a best guess attempt at something that few remember, and if someone close to you claims to, then they are laying claim to a fond memory and your role here is to elicit and stimulate that memory. I hope, this recipe does help you do that.