Sausage and Onion Rolls

I have recently bought a massive, classical cookery book (which I will post a review of sometime soon) and as I was looking through it, I was looking for some inspiration for a savoury snack/treat that I could make for lunch. I saw the recipe for a Sausage and Apple Plait, which just looked gorgeous, but really, really hard!! A lot of time would be required to do the precise pastry work, and I quickly lose my patience, get hot hands and mess up the pastry, sooooooo....I thought of an adaptation to this recipe, that was just as yummy...Sausage and Onion Rolls.

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Ingredients

450g Sausage Meat

1/2 Onion

2 Garlic Cloves

1 Egg

1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

500g Puff Pastry (YES, I used ready made BUT so does Jamie Oliver!!)

1. Preheat the oven to 200degreesC.

2. Lightly fry the onion and garlic in some oil until transparent and add the worcestershire sauce. Stir thoroughly and then take off the heat and allow to cool for 5mins or so.

3. Massage the onion and garlic mixture into the sausage meat.

4. Roll out the pastry into a long rectangle. Slice into 2 to make it easier to manipulate on the work surface. 

5. Now, this is the messy bit coming up - grab about half the sausage meat and roll out into a long thin sausage on top of the rectangular pastry. Make sure the meat is right up close to one edge of the pastry and slowly grab the edge of the pastry and roll over the sausage meat, continuing to roll until all there is only a thin strip left.

6. At this point you need to beat the egg and using a pastry brush lightly glaze the edge of the pastry as it will act like a glue, making the sausage 'roll' take form and stay together.

7. Then place the sausage roll on a baking tray and squish into a nice shape. Continue to glaze the top of the sausage roll with the egg wash (this will make it nice and crisp and golden) then with a sharp knife, slice a little pattern into the pastry - just for prettiness sake!! Bake in the oven for about 30mins or until piping hot throughout and goldenly crisp.

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I was actually so gobsmacked at how big and good they turned out!! When debating what size to cut them to, Andy said that bigger is best so I went for 'Greggs' sized sausage rolls, whereas I would have been quite happy with picnic sized ones, guess this is just down to personal preference really. I feel like I cheated a little bit, what with using ready made pastry, but it's just getting a bit awkward on the old fridge space, what with living with 3 other girls, who also need to use the fridge! (Although I feel I should get priority on space because I make YUMMY YUMMY food!!) 

Bon Appetit!!

Sausage and Leek Pie

So, it's been a while since I made some pastry and I kinda thought it was one of those things were you either 'use it, or lose it' so I asked Andy for some ideas of a pie filling he would like me to try out. We had some leeks in the fridge that I got for a bargain price of 69p and they were looking a bit worse for wear, so we researched some leek pie ideas. Alot were cheese based (Andy can't have cheese based sauces) and others involved using chicken (chicken is really expensive so kind of ruins the idea of making a poor man's pie) so we came up with the idea of combining sausages and leeks - we thought why not, afterall you have sausages with onion gravy and leeks are from the same family, so I gave it a shot.

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Ingredients

(I used the same sized dish as with the Minced Beef and Potato Pie - serves 6)

Pie Filling                                       Pastry

8 Pork Sausages                           400g Plain Flour

3 Leeks                                          200g Butter

30g Butter                                     2 Pinches of Salt

30g Plain Flour                             4 tbsp Cold Water

300ml Milk

3 tsp Mustard (your choice)
Salt
Pepper
1 egg

1. Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and add the butter in SMALL CUBES (you will see why I stress this later!) Crumble with your fingers until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add the water, little by little and when the pastry begins to combine and can 'clean' the side of the bowl, you know it's ready. Knead into a ball and wrap in cling film. Leave in the fridge to chill for at least half an hour. (If you make the pastry like this, you will have enough for a pie bottom AND lid, so when it gets to just after step 3, you will be able to line your pie dish with your pastry here....however I messed it up, as you will see!)

2. Preheat the oven to 180degreesC.

3. Grill/fry the sausages until browned on the outside. Chop into chunks and place in your pie dish.

4. Fry the chopped leeks in the butter and season with salt and pepper. Once all the butter has melted sprinkle the flour over the leeks and stir continuously. Leave to cook for 3mins or so. Take off the heat and add the milk slowly, yet again, stirring continuously. Add the mustard and season with the salt and pepper.

5. Pour the creamy leek mixture over the sausages that are already cut up in the pie dish.

6. Roll out the pastry and lay on the top of your pie. Use the beaten egg wash and a pastry brush to spread it evenly on the pie lid to get a lovely golden colour. Place on a backing tray in the oven for about 40-45mins.

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We both absolutely loved this pie hot, with a bit of mash and some boiled carrots, however, Andy wasn't so keen on it cold as apparently the leeks tasted like 'jellied slimey eels'....I thought it was scrummy though. 

But, I must admit I MAJORLY cocked up the pastry this time (I told you - use it or lose it!) because I was trying to be clever and take a short cut, so instead of adding the butter in small cubes, I added it all in one go. Consequently when I tried to roll out the pastry it kept crumbling, so I added water then it kept sticking...basically it was a right old mess!!! Furthermore, because I cheated the gluten didn't form properly and therefore the pastry didn't expand to the right quantity, so instead of having a pastry bottom and top, we only had the lid. Whoops!!!

So....because I cocked the pastry up so much, I didn't take a photo, sorry! It just looked like a completely botched up 'pie', but trust me when I say it tasted yummy!!

Why don't you give it a go and add your piccies?? Let me know how it goes guys :)

Bon Appetit!!