Wingin’ It: Southland Cheese Rolls to Squish the Fish

You like football. You like food. So do we! So much so, in fact, that we smash the two together to bring you a Buffalo Bills-inspired recipe each week. Whether it’s a take on an opponents’ fave or some real mad scientist **** coming your way, Wingin’ It is the spot to watch. This week we’re prepping for the Miami Dolphins!

This week’s recipe comes from Buffalo Rumblings regular WilliamShatnersPants who you might recall provided us with half of the pot pie recipe last year. This year WSP sent me a recipe for Southland Cheese Rolls which sounded fantastic (they are). This cheese-sauce-filled bread hails from New Zealand and is a quick and delicious item of which you can make dozens. Why the Dolphins game? They’re also called “Southland Sushi” so let’s squish some fish!

Note: I’m attaching a photo below with WSP’s original recipe. I made a couple small tweaks due to an ingredient swap I needed to make and my version has some “translations” as well. I elected to go with an easy wing sauce using rosemary which works well with the cheese sauce and is a tribute to the common pairing with lamb, another New Zealand specialty.

Southland Sushi with Rosemary Wing Sauce

Makes: about 30-35 cheese rolls
Active Time: 20 min
Total Time: 60 min

Ingredients

Sauce
¹⁄₂ cup hot sauce
¹⁄₄ tsp rosemary
5 Tbsp unsalted butter
Cheese rolls
12 oz. can of evaporated milk
1 cup cream (I used light cream, see below)
¹⁄₄ cup grated onion
1 tsp mustard powder
¹⁄₂ tsp white pepper
32g of onion soup mix powder (see below)
1 pound Edam or Gouda cheese, shredded (see below)
35 slices or bread or so, about two loaves
Softened butter (enough to butter one side of every slice of bread

Directions

1. Prepare sauce: Combine hot sauce and rosemary on LOW/
2. Stir occasionally for about 10-15 minutes (this can be done while working on the cheese spread).
3. Remove pan from heat and stir in butter. Set aside.
4. Make Sushi: Combine ingredients from evaporated milk to soup mix in a medium saucepan on MED. Stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes. Watch for scalding at the bottom.
5. Add cheese and stir in on LOW until melted in.
6. Remove from heat and allow cheese sauce to cool.
7. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
8. Butter one side of each slice of bread.
9. Spread about two tablespoons of cheese sauce on the unbuttered side of each slice of bread (see below what that looks like).
10. Roll the bread up (see below) and place on baking trays/cookie sheets. A nonstick surface or parchment paper is recommended. Place the joined edges facing down.
11. Bake cheese rolls on center rack until golden, about 20 minutes.

Here’s WilliamShatnersPants’ original recipe with my translation notes.

Wingin’ It Tips and Prep Gallery

Tips:

I couldn’t find Edam cheese, Gouda was the closest. When it came to the soup mix, the only option was a 51g packet of leek soup. That created two problems. It made it harder to get the right quantity, so shoot for a little over half a packet if you run into the same issue. Also, I’ve used this particular one before and it comes with dehydrated leeks. As a result of this I couldn’t add the powder in at the end as they’d wind up chewy or crunchy. Adding the mix in earlier was the biggest change in the recipe.

Now for the prep gallery...

Grid View

The first picture is there to give a bit of an indication how much sauce to add per slice. The bread is the biggest reference point and is pretty standard white bread.

Picture two I wanted to get a closer shot of how tight I rolled things up. When I first read the recipe I was picturing something like a Little Debbie Swiss Roll and that might be a little too tight of a roll. Just a little bit of overlap seemed to be perfect for these.

The third shot is to let you all in on a little secret. They don’t need to be perfect. Some of the rolls you’ll see the bread cracked. The ones to the top right of the shot are the ends of the loaf and those ended up more like folds than rolls. The fourth shot is the secret. When you’re photographing food, make enough so there’s at least a few nice looking ones.

Thanks again to WilliamShatnersPants!