And so, the search for the perfect roll continues...

...although we might be pretty close to a winner. You'll remember my rant about the revolting stale state of bread affairs here in the UK? Well, I recently came across a recipe for onion seed hotdog rolls which came highly recommended and I thought I'd give it a bash...to see if they turned out as the rave review suggested they would. The review in question came from a wonderful Australian woman called Janie who has her own website called Masterchef Reject (which, by the way, is pure genius and well worth a visit! www.masterchefreject.com ) but the recipe itself belongs to a man by the name of Dan Lepard who writes for the Guardian as a baking expert (his website has the recipe, so I'm not going to reproduce it here).

Both Dan and Janie recommended these buns as brilliant carriers of sausages, so that's how I served them too. The buns were really fresh out of the oven (because I'd misread the instructions and didn't realise they had to rise for an extra hour longer than I'd planned. As such, they came out of the oven about 5 mins before we ate - piping hot! Mmm) and really quite delicious! You add quite a large quantity of sauteed onions to the dough and that gives them this gorgeous sweet oniony flavour. I only added the onion seeds on top, whereas Dan suggests putting them into the dough proper - up to you really. The seeds lend a Turkish/Middle Eastern vibe to the overall flavour I think. I will say, though, that next time I make these (and there will definitely be a next time) I'm only going to use white flour. I did as Dan recommended and added 1/5 wholemeal, but I just don't think it adds anything to them. They'd be much nicer soft and squishy and devoid of nutrients in true white bread style! Oh, and you probably shouldn't use red onions for this. I did, and while they tasted fine, they did add a rather purple tone to the buns which I don't think was the recipe inventor's intention! White flour and white onions all the way!

I served my outdoor reared pork sausages with sage and garlic in the rolls with a super quick tomato chutney (made at the last minute when I realised we were out of ketchup/tom sauce. Actually the chutney was much nicer. I cooked 1/2 a red onion with 1 tsp sugar, added 4 quartered ripe tomatoes and a clove of garlic, a pinch of ground all spice, 2 tbsp or so more sugar, a splash of red wine vinegar and some salt. It was really good!). I've included a photo, but really, it doesn't do justice to the buns or the meal itself. There's just no glamorous way of photographing a sausage (and you can take whatever dodgy sounding double entendre from that you like!)!! :-P