Pork and garlic sausage rolls

How good are homemade sausage rolls? Really good! This version is particularly delicious, with a hearty pork sausage filling and plenty of garlic for that extra kick. This recipe also includes instructions to make your own puff pastry, which really takes things to the next level. It makes quite a large portion, so you’ll be able to freeze the leftover pastry and use it next time you’re baking. If you want to take a shortcut, you can skip down to Step 7 and use ready-made pastry instead. Bake them in the oven until they’re golden and crispy and serve with a little tomato sauce on the side.

Ingredients

Puff pastry

• 250g plain flour, sifted
• 250g strong white bread flour, sifted
• 10g salt
• 50g unsalted butter, cold and diced
• 200ml water, cold
• 450g butter shaped into a 15 x 15cm square and stored in the fridge

Filling

• 400g sausage meat or sausages
• 1 teaspoon dried sage
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• Salt and pepper
• Egg for washing

Method

1. Put flours and salt in a bowl, add diced butter and rub into flour until it resembles breadcrumbs and there are no big lumps of butter. Add water to centre of the bowl and use fingers to mix dough together.

2. Knead dough until it becomes elastic and smooth. Shape into a large ball, place in bowl and put a cross in the top about 2.5cm deep. Wrap in cling wrap and put in the fridge to rest for an hour.

3. Take dough out of fridge and roll out from each quarter until a cross is formed. Place butter in the centre and fold over each flap of pastry so butter is completely encased.

4. Roll the pastry into a rectangle and then fold top third down to the middle, then fold the bottom third up to meet in the middle.

5. Turn pastry 90 degrees and roll it out into a rectangle and make the same fold again. Wrap pastry in cling wrap and leave in fridge for at least 1 hour.

6. Remove pastry from fridge and repeat the same folds twice more. Return pastry to fridge and rest for another hour. Finally take the pastry from fridge and repeat the same folds one final time. Divide pastry into 3 blocks weighing 400g each. Place one of the blocks in the fridge to rest for an hour, wrap the other two in cling wrap and freezer bags and place in the freezer to use another time.

7. Preheat oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

8. Mix all of the filling ingredients together, if using sausages squeeze them out of their skins and then using your hands mix the ingredients together.

9. Roll out pastry to 60cm x 18cm and then take the filling and shape it into a sausage that is 60cm long.

10. Lay filling out on the pastry about 3cm from the edge, brush egg all along the edge and pull pastry over and seal it to the other bit of pastry on the edge.

11. Seal edges of pastry with a fork. Cut the long sausage evenly into 9 sausage rolls. Place sausage rolls in fridge for 1 hour to firm up and then remove, brush with egg and score the top 3 or 4 times at an angle with a sharp knife.

12. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes until golden brown.