A Year In Redwood

These sausage rolls have become a bit of a Twitterland hit!  They became a major point of discussion last weekend!  All sorts of questions about the ‘secret’ ingredient…. well folks all is about to be revealed!

I made these for the first time as my contribution to the ‘nibbles’ at the Irish Food Pix event at Bord Bia.

Twitterland was totally abuzz the day before with various baking projects being undertaken! And boy you should have even seen the packaging that was accompanying each project!

By the time I finished up work, and started to think about what to bring… time was running out! Always a good time to try a new recipe, eh???

The recipe was a Jamie Oliver recipe with a few twists and turns!  Poor Jamie does not have access to our yummy sausages, nor I’m sure does he have my ‘secret’ ingredient!

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 red onion, peeled and finely sliced
• A sprig of fresh sage, leaves picked
• A handful of breadcrumbs
• Fresh nutmeg, for grating
• 6 good quality pork sausages
• 250 g ready-made puff pastry (I used my own pastry)
• 1 egg
• a little milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F/Gas 4.

Melt butter in a saucepan and add the onions.  Cook gently for about 20 minutes until soft and golden brown.  Add the sage leaves, cook for a couple of minutes more.  Then spread on a plate to cool.

With a sharp knife, slit the skins of the sausages and pop the meat out.  Put it in a mixing bowl with the cooled sage and onion mix and the breadcrumbs.  Grate a little nutmeg into mix. Scrunch well with your hands to mix together.

On a floured work surface, roll the pastry out into a big rectangle.  Cut it lengthways into two long, even rectangles.

Roll the mixture into sausage shapes with your hands and lay along the centre of each rectangle – this section is a bit messy – I ended up making about 3 lengths of sausage to fit each piece of pastry – I guess it would depend on the size of your hands!

Mix the egg and milk, and brush the pastry edges with the mixture, then fold one side of the pastry over, wrapping the filling inside.  Press down with your fingers or a fork to seal the join.

Cut the long rolls into the sizes you want and space them out on a baking tray.  Brush with the rest of the egg wash and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until golden and cooked through.

And the ‘secret’ ingredient……. drum roll…….

the pastry  – made with half lard/half butter!

Enjoy! 🙂