Recipe: Flamenquines (Cordoban Rolls) w/ Saffron and Green Mayo

by ferdie, in partnership with Unearthed for Action Against Hunger

Like croquettes? Like dipping sauces? Like using your fingers ; ) . . .  I mean you don't have to but you can!! Well you'll love these! They're a bit of a faf but you can make a huge batch and freeze them and then pull them out when friends come over, or you fancy something snaky to go with that movie!!

INGREDIENTS
Flamenquines a.k.a. Cordoban Rolls w/ Saffron and Green Mayo (makes ~12 rolls)
1 pork loins (butterflied and hammered)
10g parsley (chopped)
1 garlic clove minced
1 pack serrano / prosciutto ham
250g bread crumbs
flour and eggs to coat

For the cheese roux
50 butter
30 plain flour
165ml milk chicken stock (50/50)
40g cheese
1 pack Hungarian pepperoni

To serve
100g saffron mayonnaise
100g green mayonnaise
100g lambs lettuce

METHOD
To make the cheese roux, melt the butter in a pan and add the flour. Mix it into the butter to make a paste and keep cooking it to cook the flour through for about 5 mins, then add the milk. Mix it to a smooth sauce, than add the cheese and keep cooking it to thicken it up. We also used spicy hungarian pepperoni chopped up and sprinkled into the sauce to give it a little extra pep and texture!

Allow to cool, and then put into a piping back reserving 1/4 to coat the flamenquines.

Take care not to cut all the way through else it's GAME OVER

Cut the pork loins along their length in half, then butterfly each half and hammer them out thin.

Oooh! Aaaah! Make me thinner! Aaaah! Eeeeeh!

If you're lucky it will come out as an oblong in which case you can make one large roll!
If not, cut across it's length (see chopsticks) to the desired width.

If it comes out triangular cut across the width. Top of picture.

Now lay the pork onto cling film.Lay the ham on top, and then the parsley and cheese.
Next pipe a thick core (1.5-2.5cm) down and wrap the flamenquines so the edges don't overlap too much. This is important because it means the pork will cook properly when they are fried.
Roll them in the cling film and put in the fridge to set for 30 minutes. (this helps them retain their shape as you cut and handle them, patience required here because it has quite an effect on the outcome!)

The cheese roux will give you a sumptuous centre! Aaaah come to me lovely cheese roux!

Take them out of the fridge, unwrap them from the cling film and using a knife coat them with the remaining cheese roux.
Re-wrap and return to the fridge.
Last step is to coat in bread crumbs. You want 3 bowls: flour, whisked eggs, and bread crumbs.
Coat in flour, dip in the whisked eggs and then in the bread crumbs and then return to the fridge for 30mins before use.

Cook at 150C/5mins in fryer. Take one out to make sure the pork is properly cooked through.Then remove the rest.

You need to be precise with the cooking time here, the centre must be piping hot, soft and gooey, and the outside cooked and golden crispy. If you cook them too long not only will you burn the outside but the inside will start to create steam causing it to squirt  out into the oil - Oh nooooo . . . catastrophe!!! - which isn't good if you're doing a bunch of batches because all the bits that squirt out will quickly start to char and pollute your oil with burnt bits. Result: rather mangled looking hollow husk of tough pork with burnt toast flavour coating! Oh, and no lovely gooey cheese centre, time to cry!

Serve with saffron mayo and green mayo and garnish with lambs lettuce (which also makes a nice side salad dressed with a little lemon and extra virgin olive oil). They can be served whole or cut in half to show of their porky goodness!

This is a version we did in partnership with  Unearthed for Action Against Hunger

I'm glad my freezer isn't big enough to have a cache of these. I'd be a reet podger

Flamenquines (Cordoban Rolls) w/ Saffron and Green Mayo
We used Unearthed italian pork loins, prosciutto, spicy hungarian pepperoni.
You can find the whole 8 course menu we served here.

I adapted these from the more traditional recipe so we could pre-prep them and cook them quickly in a deep fat fryer. The more traditional version, in which less cheese roux is used, and the pork is rolled swiss roll stylee, is baked for 25 minutes instead. It makes for a meatier snack, but of course you can't make them in a fryer in the same time as the above recipe because the pork simply wont cook.

If you have time - I quite like the relaxed pace of the baked version on a weekend afternoon, since you can make something else as they bake (or read the paper!) - you can roll them with more meat in the centre and bake them at 190C for 25mins. If you brush them with olive oil it gives a lovely golden crisp finish.