Pepperoni rolls: a Christmas-time family tradition

Pepperoni rolls, although the unofficial state food of West Virginia, being available in nearly every convenience store and grocery in the state, are a Christmas-time family tradition in many families that have Italian roots, particularly if those roots come from West Virginia or Southwestern Pennsylvania.  There's no reason these tasty little treats can't be enjoyed in any state of the Union, including Tennessee, especially around the holidays.  Since they're relatively easy to make and great fresh out of the oven, they're an excellent opportunity to bring parents and kids together in the kitchen for a snack-making project.

Pepperoni, first of all, is a great holidays-time snack as it is.  It's spicy, delicious, quick, and easy, and almost everyone loves it.  Sure, it's pretty unhealthy, but since it's the holidays, most people can sneak a little extra something into their diets and get away with it (even if they're the only ones policing themselves).  You'll certainly be willing to forgive yourself a few of these once you taste how the spicy red-orange oils from the pepperoni soak into the inner layers of the sweet dough.

To make them into pepperoni rolls, all that is needed is to take the pepperoni and wrap it up in some kind of sweet yeast roll dough and then bake it.  There is some debate as to the best kind of pepperoni to use for the rolls, some prefer slices while others prefer some kind of pepperoni stick.  Still others grate a pepperoni log into a product not unlike pepperoni hamburger.  There's also some debate on the proper dough-to-pepperoni ratio, some preferring more roll and others liking more spicy meat.

Here are some variants:

1. Use slices so that they're in two overlapping rows where each slice overlaps the surrounding slices by about half. 
2. If you can find pepperoni sticks, about the same diameter as a "Slim Jim" (roughly 1/4 an inch), use two or three of those in about two or three-inch-long segments.
3. Get a pepperoni log, roughly an inch in diameter, and quarter it.  Cut the quarters in half and stack them.
4. Get a pepperoni log and grate it with a box grater.  Put a heavy pinch of the result into the center of the roll.
5. Add cheese? Mozzarella is good, as are any of the hard Italian cheeses.  Dare I tempt you with Parmigiano reggiano?  Yes! It's fantastically good in there.

Roll up the dough and pinch the edges shut, bake for about 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees F or until they're golden brown (watch the bottoms.. they'll brown quickly at 375).

For an excellent sweet yeast roll recipe to make pepperoni rolls with, click here.  This recipe makes 12-16 small rolls or 6-8 large ones, depending on how much bread you like around your pepperoni.  Alternatively, purchase some frozen roll dough and save some time and effort to these little gems!

Buy it locally!  All of the ingredients in this recipe are widely available in the Knoxville area grocery stores, but higher-quality pepperoni is available at Earth Fare and The Fresh Market stores as well as occasionally in Knoxville-area Kroger stores.  It depends on your tastes, but higher quality sausages make for a higher-quality product.  These are good enough to make into a Knoxville-area tradition almost any way you make them!

For more great recipes and cooking ideas, follow the Knoxville Gourmet Food Examiner by subcribing at the top of the page.  You can also read more on his personal cooking blog: The Untrained Gourmet.