The SAMCROnut Recipe

Sons of Anarchy is a TV show that has clearly hit its stride. The FX show follows a fictional motorcycle club in California's Central Valley. As my wife likes to say "You don't need to be a fan of motorcycles to be a fan of Sons." The Sons, or SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Originals) as they're named, have picked up a huge following and average a 2.5 rating on Tuesday night TV in the US (about 4.5 million homes). The show clearly has some staying power among men and women alike.

With all of the hoopla these days around the cronut, I thought it would be awesome to throw together my own homage to Sons of Anarchy with a recipe for The SAMCROnut (credit for the awesome recipe name to my wife Ali)—a mash-up of California and Irish flavours (where the motorcycle club originated). The bun is a homemade cronut I fried (we made a baked version too which was just as delicious and much, MUCH healthier!), a California sandwich with veggie or turkey bacon, avocado, mayo, lettuce and tomato, and then topped off with an Irish cheese and Guinness sauce. A sandwich I hope the boys would be happy to serve up in their club. If you're new to the show, carve yourself out some time, make yourself a SAMCROnut, and settle in for some marathon watching of a great show!

Ingredients:

Refrigerated crescent rolls

2 oz Irish cheddar or Dubliner cheese, finely grated

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon English mustard
1 egg yolk

A couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce

6 tablespoons Guinness
8 slices veggie or turkey bacon, cooked
1 avocado, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
4 leaves of green leaf lettuce
2 tablespoons mayonnaise

Make the cronuts:

Your crescents should come 4 in a tube. Stack two of the sheets together, press the dough to combine and using a ring mold and a shot glass form into donut shape. Take the cutout dough, press back together and form your second cronut. Repeat this with the last two sheets to make four cronuts in total.

You can bake the cronuts on a baking sheet at 375F for about 12 minutes, flipping once half-way through. Make sure to watch them closely as they go from done to over-done fairly quickly. To fry them simply deep-fry at 350F until cooked. Again, watch them carefully as they need to cook through but you don't want to burn them either.

Remove them from the fryer or oven and set aside on a paper towel-lined plate

To make the Irish cheese sauce:

In a saucepan melt butter over low heat. Sprinkle in the flour slowly mixing constantly to incorporate.

In a small bowl whisk together the Guinness, mustard, egg yolk and Worcestershire sauce. Slowly pour into the pot mixing constantly until combined.

Add the cheese in and stir until combined to make a thick sauce. If you find the sauce is a bit dry you can add in some more Guinness to loosen it. If it's too runny sprinkle in a bit more flour.

To compile your SAMCROnuts:

Split the cronuts in half and spread mayonnaise on each bottom half. Now layer on the bacon, avocado, lettuce and tomato. Lastly, spread a good dollop of Irish cheese sauce on the top half of the cronut and prop that up on top of your SAMCROnut. Dig in!

Makes 4 sandwiches