Rolls for sausage.

Sausage rolls. What a throwback to childhood. Originally conceived in England, thanks to our convict past, we enjoy them in Australia. Not having access to them here in the US, we have to make our own or pay a fortune for commercial ones...homemade wins hands down!

I remember getting them at the tuck shop (cafeteria?) as a kid. In High School you put them in a buttered bread roll and doused them in the good old dead horse. (Tomato sauce) Speaking of tomato sauce, I prefer ketchup, always have, because it's got some flavour to it, rather than being, I think, fairly bland.

Today, while watching The Open, I made a batch using a combination of 2 recipes. I wanted to try and make a rough puff pastry, but it was an absolute disaster. I tried twice and ended up throwing it all in the bin.

Then, I found a recipe in a small cook book called Outdoor Food that my Mother-in-Law gave Chanin and I a few days after we got married. The recipe was for Sausage Rolls, but I thought the sausage mixture sounded a bit plain, besides, I had a secret weapon in the sausage mixture department, the pastry looked to be exactly what I was after though. After tasting a finished sausage roll, the pastry, while not as buttery, is the same as I remember from Australia.

The sausage mixture recipe I got from the expats website, Mates Up Over, the link is over there ----->>> on the right. The recipe is from a friend that I've never met by the name of Jan (she goes by the handle of echeers). Jan has moved back to Australia with her family, but her recipe lives on...at least in my house and stomach.

Well, here we go.

Ingredients:

Pastry – see recipe (You will need 2 batches of this pastry)

Pastry Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour (plain flour) plus extra for dusting

Pinch of salt

½ tsp mustard powder

½ cup butter, diced

6 tbsp ice water

Method:

Sift the flour into the bowl of a food processor with the salt and mustard powder.

Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

With the processor running at the slowest speed, add water, a bit at a time, until a dough ball forms. Do not add too much or the dough will be sticky. You want the dough soft.

Form into a ball, wrap in foil and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Sausage ingredients:

3 slices of bread

1/2 cup of boiling water

2 tsp of mixed herbs (Italian type herbs are good)

2lbs (1kg) pork sausage meat

2 small carrots finely chopped (food processor works best)

1 large brown onion finely chopped (food processor works best)

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

1 egg beaten

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 450F (230C).

Remove crusts from bread, place in a bowl and pour in the boiling water.  Allow standing 5 minutes, squeezing out the excess moisture, and discarding the water.

Combine bread, sausage meat, onion, carrot, herbs, salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands.

Get pastry out of fridge and roll out thinly, about 1/8” (3 or 4mm). Cut into rectangles 7” wide. (18cm) Length just depends on how muscular you feel, as the dough will take some effort to roll out.

Use a soft plastic piping bag (without the end attachment) to pipe the mixture down the centre of the pastry. Pipe each piece of pastry twice. Or, you can just spoon it on and shape it.

Fold the pastry over and seal edges. You can leave the rolls 7” long for full size or cut then up to party size. (Up to you how big though) Cut with a sharp knife.

Place on tray (seam side down) lined with parchment/baking paper and then glaze each one with a beaten egg. Prick each one with a fork. (The paper saves time cleaning and helps to brown them on their bottoms.) 

Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until pastry is golden. The meat will shrink a bit, so you can over stuff them or leave it as is.

I had one for lunch and it was delicious!

You can wrap them in wax paper, then foil and freeze them.

To reheat, pre-heat oven to 350F (180C), then cook on a tray for 15 minutes.

Special thanks to Jan for the mixture recipe.

As always, Enjoy.

Matt