This recipe was a big secret.  To replicate it perfectly has a lot to do with the implementation, and well, that’s on you.  If you use it and serve it to friends or if you’re a restaurant using it for customers,  DISCLAIMER: Please call it what it is, and don’t appropriate the recipe under your own name.  Someone, somewhere in the ether will know, and it will be nothing but bad juju for you.    Here is the recipe.  This is a truncated version so you won’t be sitting on 100 rolls, which is about what we used to sell daily.  These were seriously famous.  People from everywhere ate these.  Travelers going across the country would stop in at the Copper Hills just to get these on the annual journeys to the Southwest.  They are amazing.

I can’t thank  Rose Necoechea enough. This is her mom’s recipe.  The Copper Hills is long gone, but I hope, for those that remember what a wonderful place it was, this brings a smile.

Lorene’s Copper Hills Cinnamon Sweet Rolls

From

Lorene Asanovich

(Makes 24 Rolls)

Dough:

1 Pkg              Dry Yeast (1/4 oz.)

¼ Cup             Warm Water (110 – 150 degrees)

4 Cups             All Purpose Flour

¼ Cup             Sugar

1 Tsp               Salt

1 Cup  Butter (softened)

1 Cup              Warm Milk

3                      Egg Yolks (slightly whipped)

Filling:

3 Tbsp            Butter (softened)

½ Cup             Sugar

2 Tbsp            Cinnamon

Glaze:

1 ¾ Cup          Powdered Sugar

2 Tbsp            Butter (softened)

2 Tsp               Vanilla

3 Tbsp            Milk

Directions:

• In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside.
• In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt. Cut in butter until crumbly then add yeast mixture, milk and egg yolks.
• Stir to form a soft dough then cover and let it rise to double.
• After rising, divide dough in half. Roll out each half until it measures 10” x 12” and 2” thick.
• Spread butter, sugar and cinnamon on each piece of dough. Roll dough from 10” side. Then cut into 12 even sections (about 1”).
• Place on baking pan and let rise to double.
• Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
• When cool, frost with glaze.

After more than 15 years, 11 years after his death, I found them in a box when I was unpacking in Detroit.  There are over 4 hours of stories that have been transcribed — even more that haven’t.  My sister Patricia transcribed them verbatim.  I was pissed at the time because my dad’s grammar wasn’t all that good — now I can hear his voice in the type.  She was right to do it that way, and I can’t believe that she did so much.

Here’s one of the first stories.  It dates probably from the early 1920s.

“I remember one time, we had a teacher and we had a big stucy hall class and this study hall class had maybe 75/80 chairs in there the we sat in.  Little chairs and tables, you know the regular school desks — this, I can’t think of his name, this school teacher was a tough son-of-a-bitch and he wanted nothing but absolute quiet in it.
Well, right next to me was Nono Puente who was sitting there adn he took his pencil and laid it up on top of his desk, and it rolled off and hit the floor.  boy, this school teacher looked down and didn’t know exactly where it was at, but he knew it was in the area where Nono and I were sitting.  And he says, ‘I don’t want that pencil to drop again!’
Well, Nono was a tough little kid, too.  As soon as the teacher turned around the next thing you know, why, he just let that pencil roll off again.  Boy!  this school teacher came down and looks — he didn’t know where it was, but he knew it was with the four or five of us (The others were Joe Kiami, Albert Ragus and ‘Libo’), and he figured that it would either be Nono or me or somebody else there.  He said, ‘The next time that pencil drops, I’m going to really raise hell!’
Well, he started to go back to his desk and I just picked up the pencil and threw it on the floor.  Down he come, and he reached out and just knocked the hell out of Nono Puente; and Nono had nothing to do with it!  I was the one that had done it.
After school we waited for him, and Nono brought his big brother by the name of Manuel Puente.  Manuel was another tough kid.  So we went out, and when the teacher came out after school, we just beat the living hell out of him!
It was one of the times that I wasn’t too sorry for beating the hell out of someone, even if he was a teacher.  Well, we beat the hell out of him, and by God, believe this or not, he never came back to school.  He quit and where he went to we never knew.  But that’s the kind of kids we were.
We was — good or bad, I don’t know.  But that’s what life was like in those days…”

When I was a young man, I worked at my Father’s Restaurant on the line at nights.  One of the most often-ordered dishes on the menu was the “Danko Special”.  It was a dish that my dad developed — we ate it out our house for as long as I can remember — it consisted of a dish that had some Yugoslavian accents, some 1950′s-60′s-style dining accents, and just a little bit “magic dust “sprinkled on it by our Cordon Bleu-trained chef, Michel Gehin.

The Copper Hills Restaurant Burned down in 2001, and the Danko Special hasn’t been served in any commercial form since 1991. I want to release this recipe to those that remember ordering it, others that wonder just what the heck all the fuss about the Copper Hills might have been about, and finally as a recipe that you’d enjoy. This recipe is for all of you that have ordered it in a some “past life”. This special time for me seems so long ago; I never thought that there would be a Globe Miami without a Copper Hills. You know who you are, and you’re all part of my extended family. Remember what it was called (Danko is pronounced “Don’-Ko”).

First, you’ll need a Top Sirloin Steak.  New York is pretty good, Filet is OK.  I like the Top Sirloin for the marble and flavor — I think that the filet doesn’t have enough fat for my purposes, and the New York has the fat in the “wrong place”.  Your mileage will vary — this is just the way that it was done. Then you’ll need the vegetables for the dish:

• 1 medium Bell Pepper
• 1 medium Onion
• 1 medium Tomato
• 1/2 cup fresh mushrooms (Crimini – Italian Brown)
• 1-2 cloves of fresh minced garlic
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

You’ll need 1 tbsp of butter and olive oil, plus cooking sherry (there’s a substitute for this, but will get into alternatives in a moment).

To cook it “Danko’s way”:

preparation:

• Peel tomato by dipping in boiling water until the skin can be picked off.
• Slice the Bell Pepper in half across their “waist”, then remove the seeds and rinds.
• Slice the onion in half across the “waist”.
• Slice the mushrooms in “pie slice” wedges, about 6 per medium mushroom.

Cooking:

• Fry the steak in butter and olive oil until it’s done to your taste.
• WHILE the steak is cooking, take a saute pan with olive oil and put the bell peppers and onions in.  You’ll want to brown each side.  When one side is done, add the mushrooms and garlic.  You may need to add more oil if the mushrooms begin to suck it up.  Once the mushrooms are in, add your tomato.  You’ll want to gently roll the tomato around until it is browned all over as much as possible.  All the vegetables should finish at the same time.  Once the vegetables are near finished, add the cooking wine and flame.  The steak should be done now.  Plate the steak on a heated dinner plate.  Add the vegetables over the top of the steak, then pour the wine/oil drippings all round.  Douse the top with chopped parsley and serve.

Alternative methods

I won’t lie that I like to cook and I prefer to “modernize” the Danko special a bit.  Here are my suggested variations.  Mix and match as you see fit:

• Get your veggies at a farmer’s market.
• Use Dry Vermouth instead of Cooking Sherry  (Marsala ain’t bad, either).
• Julienne the onions and peppers — it’s more fun when you add yellow and red, and even more fun if you throw in a “Big Jim” Chile.  When you serve the vegetable mix, plate it first and use it as a “bed” for the steak.  The tomato and the mushrooms go in last still, along with the juice.
• You can broil the tomato with a light dust of Parmesan, Asiago or any sharp Italian cheese.
• The original recipe calling for Crimini mushrooms is great.  Whip on a forest mushroom mix, Chanterelles,etc.
• Try it with lumpy mashed potatoes with horseradish, polenta or even hash browns!

Bon Apetit.  Have fun.

On the way over, a Chicken Cacciatore was served and Dad really thought is was the cat’s pajamas. He had the habit of getting up at the crack of dawn, and he loved talking to cooks and kitchens, and had a way of just getting along with everyone, everywhere and could completely relate at a level that I just don’t have the talent for.

So he talked the chef out of the his personal Cacciatore Recipe, promising never to publish it and only use it in his restaurant in Miami, Arizona.

Which he did. Dad’s been gone since Halloween in 2000, the Cristoforo Colombo has been shredded into razor blades, file cabinets and other metal parts. I don’t know if the chef is still alive, and if he is, I’m sorry in advance, but this is such a good recipe, I want to share.

Ingredients

• 6-8 Chicken Thighs
• 2 cups of Crimini Mushrooms, chopped into wedges
• At least one cup of chopped parsley
• 1 cup of Marsala wine
• 1 stick of butter (I’m not kidding!)
• 1/2 cup of olive oil, but you’ll probably use more.
• spaghetti, the thick stuff works best
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4 tsp of corn starch to deglaze.

Preparation

• Melt the stick of butter in a pan until it begins to brown.  Salt and Pepper the chicken thighs and stick them in to slowly saute.  When they start to brown, add enough olive oil until it starts to get deep in the pan; about halfway up the meat.
• Add the mushrooms and chopped parsley.
• Bring down to a low simmer, then cover and let the thighs cook.
• Boil water for spaghetti.
• When the thighs are cooked, bring the heat up and add the marsala wine.  Flame it if you like.
• Deglaze with 1/4 tsp of cornstarch.
• Put the thighs on low and cook the Spaghetti
• When everything’s done, serve the dish with the Spaghetti, thighs on top, then the butter/olive oil/marsala wine sauce with mushrooms and parsley on top.
• Lotsa Parmesano Reggiano.
• Serve with a good Tuscan White.

This is the way it was passed down. I’ve made this dish a ton of times, and through my experience, I prefer:

Variations on a theme.

• White Vermouth for the Marsala wine. The White Vermouth has lotsa herbs and tastes great.
• I like Shallots, but don’t overpower the light flavors.
• I also like Cayenne with the salt on the thighs, but not too much.
• Forest mushrooms for the Crimini Mushrooms.  If they’re small enough, don’t chop them.
• Oregano vs Parsley — you decide.   Tarragon’s too strong in my opinion.
• Pasta switch — go find some Strozzapreti
• Or go with some Fava Beans or Risotto!

Have fun with the recipe.  It’s a lucky one for me, and it came from a lucky ship.  The Cristoforo Columbo was the sister ship to the Andrea Doria and served for decades on the Italian Line with little or no mishaps until airlines finally did them all in.  Dad wanted me to have made a “crossing” in the old-school way, and I hope that sharing this recipe will pay my gratitude forward.