Eppy Rolls - A tribute to a delicious hand-held treat

" The EL" Cresent Street Station on the J line.

There were several great pizza parlors in the old neighborhood. The old neighborhood was Cypress Hills in Brooklyn also known as East New York. Ernesto Pizza on Hemlock Street and Ridgewood Ave. There were a few great stores on Fulton Street. Jacks was on Fulton off Pine Street and a hungry sixth grader could get his fill for a buck.Jacks was under the El. Jacks was a typical joint, counter in the front with the double decker Bakers Pride Pizza Ovens. Jacks had about 12 tables in the back. Blessed Sacrament was around the corner. That meant that Jacks was a five-minute walk from the school. Two slices of cheese and a small soda was 80 cents. That left 20 cents change from the dollar I got for lunch money. A small chocolate Italian ice was an awesome treat for those last 20 pennies. The short walk to Jacks and the fact that pizza could be served and devoured quickly left more time for pre-adolescent mischief. Some of those Catholic schoolboy escapades may be discussed in a future post. Picture courtesy of the East New York Project.

Further east on Fulton Street between Hemlock and Autum was another awesome pizza place. The name escapes me at the moment. Maybe Joes, maybe Mikes, I am not 100 % sure. What set this pizzeria apart from the rest was their Sicilian, a crusty, doughy, square which I deemed the best in the neighborhood. The pie man was a big gruff dude with a 1970’s porn star mustache. He would berate me when I ordered a “corner piece of pizza”. “It’s a slice!” He would demand. I enjoyed pissing him off, so I continued that annoyance into my teenage years. But this story is not about Sicilian pizza, it’s not even about pizza at all. This posting is about a tasty treat not very well known and made at some establishments but not all. It is about the Eppy (Eppie) Roll.

The Eppy Roll was some yeasty pizza dough wrapped around Italian Sausage with peppers, onions and of course mozzarella cheese. The ends were usually open, and the well-done crusty sausage stuck out of both sides. There are several rumors about how Eppy Roll got its name. Some say it was short for pepperoni. You know those folks, the illiterate ones. I read that some old school Italian Restaurants in Buffalo take credit for its innovation. Others remark that it was the economical nature of the handheld that attracted the flower generation of the 1970s. Specifically the Hippies, yes, some places even called it a Hippie Roll. For about a buck you could get sweet or hot. This place. JoeMikes’s did not sauce the roll itself but served the marinara on the side. That was my preference. I also remember spinach and even chicken fillings but my “go to” was always the sausage. Longing for some nostalgia I decided to try my hand at the re-creation of these savory little pouches of my youth. I set out to our local butcher A-Z Meats on Route 1 in Stafford. A few pounds of Zacks zesty awesome house-made sausage and I was on my way!

The dough recipe I will share another time. I used Caputo’s double zero flour and yeast. I made some extra to stash away in the freezer for pizza night. I like to brown the sausages on the outside, but I leave them a little rarer in the middle to allow the wonderful porky fat and spices to leech onto the bread as it bakes. Not everyone will condone my next step. I allow the sausages to cool off and I slice them long ways. I spread out the rectangles of well risen dough. I add the sliced sausage, top it off with an array of colorful sauteed pepper and onions and add some cheese. (Polly-O of course) I am of the opinion that slicing the sausages adds a little something to the mouth feel without totally compromising the “snap” of the natural casing.

I baked the rolls at 405 for about 22 minutes, on the middle rack. I finished them with a quick egg wash, some shredded Locatelli Romano and a sprinkle of poppy seeds. I made these dudes a bit more substantial then the OG Hot Pockets from the 70s. I also failed at the open ends on a few of these rolls. But they were delicious and each bite brough my back home to the Borough of Kings.

I had to put one away for my boy Kenny because he was away in some exotic place. Awesome memories and awesome tastes. Its what life is all about. TTFN from TFN.