I’m sure for a lot of you, your first question when reading this recipe post would be “what’s an epis?”. An epi, epis being the plural form, is a kind of bread loaf that where the dough is initially shaped like a baguette, but is then snipped and fanned out to sort of look like a tree or a branch. They are really pretty and are especially fun to make when the breads are stuffed, since then you can get a sneak peek into what the bread would taste like. For the case of this specific recipe, I had two things in my refrigerator I was trying to get rid of. I’m sure the title might be the dead giveaway here, but they were scallions/green onions, which I plucked from a farm, and Berkshire pork sausages, which I used to make little octopus weenies for another dish, and I just had a bunch of them leftover afterwards. So when I was taking inventory of my fridge and narrowing down how to use all of the things inside of it, I figured, why not pair these two together? Pork and green onions sound like a great time, and I know I can combine them into a really tasty, savory situation. My initial thought was something like a scallion pancake, wrapped around the sausages. But that just sounded very finnicky, since scallion pancakes requires a lot of manual work to make, with the dough needed to be layered up. So instead, I started thinking about bakery items. A while ago, my friend from Masterchef, Felix, made these amazing scallion brioches with Kewpie mayonnaise and pork floss, and I was obsessed with them. Obsessed enough to be inspired to go the bread-making route with these. So thank you, Felix! Instead of doing a brioche, I went with a scallion milk bread, and wrapped that dough around the sausages. However, just doing essentially a baked hot dog or a sausage roll, while fun, I felt like there could be something else that I could do with it. And that was where the idea to turn the rolls into epis came from! All in all, these rolls came together somewhat quickly, considering that a yeast-based dough was involved.

The dough is a milk bread dough, which is made through a tangzhong, which is essentially a roux, or cooked flour mixture. By cooking a portion of your flour, in this case, a quarter of it, that mixture being used in the bread dough results in the bread being springy and soft. In the case of this recipe, I actually cooked scallions in olive oil, then mixed that with flour, then water. The milk in the bread comes through in the form of malted milk powder, which I love adding to yeasted bread doughs, since the malted milk gives a more fragrant flavor to the dough itself. Using regular milk powder, or subbing out all of the water with equal parts milk works as well! Beyond that, the dough requires attention to temperature, as mixing the cooked flour mixture into the yeast while the cooked flour mix is too hot could kill your yeast, and result in dense, hard bread. Just be mindful of that as you are making the dough, as keeping everything at room temperature or below is important so that your bread dough can proof properly. Beyond that, the sausages are simply seared, just to give them a less boiled-tasting flavor, and the rolls are brushed with a Kewpie mayonnaise wash in place of an egg wash, just to provide that MSG-goodness on top of the baked epis! All in all, these rolls were a lot of fun to make, especially when it came time to snip them and fan out the little segments. That and they were a pretty effective way to use up 3 green onions and about 12 Berkshire sausages and they tasted delicious, so I was fairly happy with the decision to make these!

Makes 12 epis/rolls:
For the scallion milk bread:
1 1/4 cups water, in 5 parts
1 packet active-dry yeast
1 tbsp malted milk powder
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
3 scallions, rinsed and minced
a pinch of salt
2 cups all-purpose flour, in 4 parts

In a bowl, mix 1 part of the water with the active-dry yeast, malted milk powder, and granulated sugar. Allow the yeast mixture to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before mixing in 3 parts of flour, and 3 parts of water to it. In a pot, heat up the olive oil, scallions, and salt, allowing the scallions to gently poach in the oil until soft. At that point, add into the pot 1 part of the flour first, and stir until combined. Then take the pot off the heat, and stir in another part of the water to form a paste. Allow the paste to cool down to roughly room temperature before mixing into the yeast mixture. Once the scallion dough is cooled down properly, mix into the yeast dough, kneading the dough until reaches a firm, elastic consistency. Allow the dough to rest, covered at room temperature for 1 hour, then allow it to rest further in the refrigerator, for at least another hour.

For assembly:
12 Berkshire sausages
olive oil
salt
milk bread dough*
1 tbsp kewpie mayonnaise
2 tbsp cold water

In a pan, sear the sausages with olive oil and salt, allowing them to brown on each side. Let the sausages cool down completely before using in the assembly process. With the dough, divide it into 12 equal pieces. Wrap the dough pieces around each sausage, and form them into a mini baguette-like shape. Space each piece of dough to be about 2 inches apart from one another on a lined sheet tray. Brush the tops of them with a mixture of kewpie mayonnaise and cold water. Then using scissors, snip along the length of the breads, and fan them out. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. If the tops aren’t golden brown enough, broil them in the oven for another 1-2 minutes, watching them very carefully so that they don’t burn!