Chef's tasty sausage rolls

June 18, 2018

Sausage Rolls

Sausage rolls are a big part of childhood in Australia - from bite sized pieces at parties to school Tuckshops, sausage rolls are the go-to food for kids all over the country!

Chef and I volunteer at the Tuckshop for our local school, and every week Chef makes the sausage rolls from scratch. As you can imagine we try to make them as healthy as possible, adding sneaky veg (for those fussy eaters!) and only using good quality meat and ingredients. Over the years Chef has developed a great recipe and we felt that it's too good not to share! So crank up the oven, make sure you have plenty of tomato sauce in the pantry and prepare to make Chef's tasty sausage rolls!

This recipe will make 24 big sausage rolls or you can cut them into bite-size pieces if desired.

Ingredients for the meat mix
1 small onion (80g), finely diced
1 garlic clove , crushed
80g panko (Japanese bread crumbs )
1000 g minced (ground) pork
500 minced (ground) beef
150g grated carrot
150g grated pumpkin
150g grated sweet potato
25g salt
3g cracked pepper
2g nutmeg ground ( or mace)
3g sweet paprika
3g coriander ground
Pinch of dried majoram
3 eggs
4 sprigs chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

For the pastry
600 g plain flour
400g butter, diced, cold
about 390 ml ice cold water
15g salt
Or if you would rather not make your own pastry, you'll need 6 sheets of puff pastry
1 egg, extra, beaten light

Method

For the sausage roll pastry, sift the flour into a large bowl and add the salt.
Add butter to the flour and place on a work surface, Make a well in the centre, add about 360 ml cold water and combine, adding a little more water if necessary, until you have a firm rough dough. You should still be able to see chunks of butter.
Roll the dough in to a rectangle, until 3 times the width, about 20 x 60cm. Keep edges straight and even as possible. You should be able to see streaks of butter in the pastry.
Fold the top third down to the centre, then the bottom third up and over that. Give the dough a quarter turn and roll out again to three times the length. Repeat folding, rolling and turning twice more. cover with cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling to use.

Sausage roll pastry

For the sausage rolls, preheat oven to 190°C. Line oven trays with baking paper.
Combine onion, garlic, bread crumbs, grated vegetables, pork and beef mince, eggs and spices and work through well for at least 5 min. Let rest in fridge for about 15 min.
On a floured work surface roll the pastry to 3-4 mm thick and cut into 12cm x 24 cm pieces (or if using ready-rolled pastry, cut each sheet in half).
Place or pipe equal amounts of filling mixture lengthways along of each pastry piece.
Roll each pastry piece, from one wide edge, to enclose filling.
Cut each log into two equal lengths if you want full size sausage rolls or four equal lengths for bite sized . Brush with egg. Place on 4 baking trays lined with baking paper .
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the pastry is deep golden brown.

Enjoy your hand made sausage rolls!