Product review and competition: Don continental products
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I’ve eaten DON smoked bacon on a Dominos 7 meats pizza and thought it was delicious. So when presented with the opportunity to create a recipe using DON smallgoods, write about it here on the blog and help launch a competition, I didn’t hesitate. Aussie bloggers, make sure you check out the details about the DON Ultimate Gourmet Creation competition at the end of this post!
Just so you know: the opinions, comments and recipes in this blog post are my own and have not been supplied by DON Smallgoods. So let’s proceed!
Dinner – pizzas
Jac loves any excuse to eat smallgoods – she came home from the supermarket with English leg ham, pepperoni salami and semi sun-dried tomato kabana, all excited about the impending cooking session.
We decided to make pizzas, one of them a meatlovers one, so we could use multiple meats all at once.
In retrospect, shaved ham probably wasn’t a great choice for a pizza topping (when it’s shaved, it just too fine and delicate to have much impact as a pizza topping), but that was our fault for choosing it, rather than a fault of the product. Jac chopped the ham roughly into squares. She sliced the kabana and pepperoni. Of course, I took the opportunity to taste each of the meats at this point.
The ham looked very appealing, sitting there in a shiny pink pile on the chopping board. It had a lovely flavour. The kabana was delicious, with the bouncy texture and fatty richness kabana sausage tends to have. The pepperoni had a bite to it, but was overall quite mild, which I appreciated – I don’t like overly spicy pepperoni, because after eating it I can’t taste much of anything else!
I was quite intrigued by the semi sun-dried tomato kabana and examined it closely. There appeared to be pieces of sun-dried tomato in the sausage. I picked out the tiny red bits and tried them on their own – yep, definitely semi sun-dried tomato. When munching on slices of the kabana – it was wickedly, temptingly moreish – I didn’t think the semi sun-dried tomato flavour was that noticeable. But I didn’t mind, as the sausage itself was very tasty. I had to stop myself eating kabana so we’d have enough for the pizza!
The smell of the pizzas, and the aroma of sausage and cheese in the oven was mouth-watering. And when Jac pulled the pizzas out of the oven, I couldn’t wait to start carving me a slice or two or three! I thought they looked fantastic, but I’ll let you judge for yourself. You’ll just have to imagine that gorgeous warm smell of baked pizza crust, sizzling meats and melted cheese. :)
First, the Hawaiian, which consisted of ham and pineapple with tomato sauce. We used tinned crushed pineapple with the DON shaved English leg ham.
Second, the pizza I was most looking forward to eating – the meatlovers pizza, featuring ham, kabana, pepperoni and mushrooms, with BBQ sauce on a thin and crispy base.
This pizza definitely deserves a close-up.
And last of all, I just have to show you our vegetarian pizza, with fresh tomato, capsicum, spinach, olives, mushrooms, tomato sauce and mega amounts of cheese. We did have some vegetables that night! :D
Our “recipe” for these pizzas is not really a recipe!
We used:
- Pre-made pizza bases (we didn’t have the time to make pizza dough from scratch on a week night after work)
- A selection of DON meats – we used English leg ham, semi sun-dried tomato kabana and pepperoni salami.
- Pizza tomato sauce
- Barbecue sauce
- Various toppings as mentioned (use whatever you like!)
Jac baked them in the oven for roughly 15 – 20 mins at 200C – how long you bake them for will depend on your oven, and whether you’ve used freshly rolled dough or pre-made bases.
Next time we’ll definitely have to use a chunkier ham product on pizza – the shaved ham got kind of lost in the pizza and was overwhelmed by the tangy flavour of the pineapple (not the ham’s fault!). The meatlovers pizza was my favourite out of the three – the hot baked sausage left pools of oil on the cheese, but ohhhh, it tasted magnificent. There’s nothing like hot, crispy-edged sliced sausage smothered with melted cheese and barbecue sauce!
I’d definitely buy the pepperoni and kabana again to make more pizzas, or for nibblies platters – they’d be great served with crackers, cheese and pickles.
We enjoyed the pizza leftovers the next day, and Jac took a plate of pizza to work to share with her workmates.
But wait, there’s more – sandwich bento
I decided to make us sandwiches the next morning for our work lunches and use more of the DON continental meats. I also had some leftover SPAM to use up, and had a craving for Chinese omelette, so I made two sandwiches with those fillings, and two sandwiches using the DON products.
I used thick-sliced light rye bread and made the following sandwiches:
- DON shaved English leg ham, swiss cheese, mild English mustard, mayonnaise and lettuce
- DON strasburg (Jac bought this too! It’s another kind of continental sausage), mayo, lettuce, sweet spiced gherkin pickles
- SPAM, cucumber, strawberry jam
- Chinese omelette, sweet chilli sauce, cucumber
I’ve mentioned earlier that the shaved ham is rather thin and delicate, so I used a few slices to make a decent sandwich – although I like to cut the crusts off the bread, we do like our sandwich fillings to be quite hefty!
I quickly fried the sliced SPAM until it was browned and crispy-edged, then let it cool completely before using it in the sandwich.
For the Chinese omelette, I beat two eggs with a drizzle of soy sauce and a sprinkling of white pepper, then fried them in a pan, again leaving the omelette to cool before putting it in the sandwich.
I don’t remember having eaten strasburg before; I really liked it – after all, I am a big fan of sausages! I don’t know a lot about strasburg sausage, but it was milder in flavour than both the pepperoni and the kabana. It went very well with the sweet gherkin pickles. I must use that combination again in a sandwich. The English ham and English mustard combo was great too – Jac said that was her favourite sandwich of the lot. Jac is a big fan of continental meats. She loves sandwiches for lunch and would love it if I made her sandwiches with different continental meats every day.
These sandwiches were a success, anyway! Jac really enjoyed them and loved the little note I drew for her. It had been a while since I packed Jac sandwich bento for lunch.
Win a restaurant voucher with the DON Ultimate Gourmet Creation competition (Australian readers only)
Purchase a DON meat product from your local supermarket and create “the ultimate DON gourmet creation