Recipe - Sausage Rolls

I was a busy bee yesterday!  Homemade sausage rolls, Pea and Ham soup, Malteser cheesecake, Mince Pies, I was so tired that I was in bed by 9pm.  Today the intention is to attempt some festive type savoury pastries, but we'll see how that goes, best laid plans and all that!

Homemade Sausage Rolls

I'm quite shocked at something I did last night, I wanted to know how to make a roux - for my sins, I have never ever made a white sauce before.  I knew this potential recipe-in-my-head didn't warrant cream, just a plain white sauce.  I was just about to bounce up the stairs to my computer (Google...) and I stopped myself.  I have over one hundred cookbooks.  What was I doing?  It just goes to show how we've come to rely so heavily on technology, doesn't it?

Anyway, back to the sausage rolls.  I don't know the origin of this recipe, it was given to me by a friend, must be at least 7 years ago now, after I tried them at one of her gatherings.

Remember 'Sorry-looking Basil'?  Meet his sister 'Sorrier Sage'...

Ingredients
454g good quality Pork sausages
Large red onion, finely chopped
375g sheet of Puff pastry
1 tsp fennel seeds (I ground mine in a spice grinder)
2 slices white bread, crusts removed, blitzed into breadcrumbs
50g dried Apricots, snipped finely
6 small sage leaves, snipped finely
Sprinkle of ground nutmeg
Salt and ground black pepper
1 beaten egg
Poppy seeds, to garnish

Saute the diced red onion in a little oil on a low heat for about 5 minutes.  Don't fry them, just soften them.  Set aside to cool.

Snip the sausage skins and squeeze the meat into a bowl.  Add the cooled onion, apricots, sage, breadcrumbs, nutmeg, fennel seeds and seasoning.

Combine until thoroughly well-mixed

 Lay the pastry sheet out flat and cut in half lengthways

Put the meat onto a lightly floured chopping board or work surface and mould into a long sausage shape.  Place this in the middle of one of the rectangular strips of pastry.

Lay the second strip of pastry on top of the first and mould over the sausage mixture.

Brush the overlapping edges with a little beaten egg, and fold in towards the sausage meat.

Crimp the edges with a fork

Brush the top of the sausage roll with beaten egg and sprinkle the poppy seeds on top

Cut the roll into slices, I got 12 out of it, approximately an inch thick.  Place on a baking tray and put in the oven on the second shelf down (these were scraping the top of my top shelf!), 180C/Gas Mark 4 for approximately 20 - 25 minutes.  Keep an eye on them!

They're a bit 'faffy' - which is why I only ever make them at Christmas - but they were definitely worth the 'faff', they taste so much nicer than shop bought ones, with the added bonus that you know what's gone into them! 

M x