Wednesday, 12 January 2011

There's nothing quite like the taste of a homemade sausage roll

Today I made rough puff pastry for the first time. Wow, this stuff has some serious butter layerage! Rough puff has 4 layers of butter, puff pastry has 7 layers. 
Laura Jackson, head chef at the Towpath in East London serves a simple menu with seasonal ingredients and is renowned for her home-made sausages. This is her recipe that makes approximately 12 large sausage rolls.


Rough Puff Pastry
500g plain flour (kept in fridge)
2 tspn salt
300g butter divided into 4 piles (3x 75g cubes softened, 1 x 75g refrigerated)
200ml cold water (kept chilled in fridge)
Sausage Roll Filling 
750g minced pork belly, 750g mince pork shoulder, 250g minced pork fat, 250g breadcrumbs, 300g diced onions sweated down in butter with salt & pepper seasoning, 1/2 bunch chopped sage, salt & pepper)


A cool room, cold flour, cold butter, cold marble surfaces are all good for pastry making. Keep it light not overworked.
1) Start by rubbing the cold butter into the flour and salt mixture (you can use a Magimix or rub with your fingertips by hand)
2) Add the cold water a little at a time - too much liquid and the dough will be too sticky and elastic. 
3) Keep checking for consistency and you should see the dough suddenly come together in a ball shape (it will also darken slightly in colour)
4) Cling film your dough and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour.
5) Lightly flour your cold marble surface and roll out your dough
6) Roll gently so that the shape is 3x as long as it is wide. The thickness should be roughly the size of a pound coin. Each time you roll out, ensure the sides are neat and even
7) Spread 75g of the softened butter onto the pastry dough, leaving a margin (1/2inch) around the edge and only spread from the top to 2/3rds down. The butter should be soft but not greasy.
8) Then fold over like a book, bottom up to the middle and then top over the bottom. Back into fridge for 1/2hr rest. Repeat this process until you have laminated 3 x 75g softened butter into the pastry dough.
9) Once rested you can then roll out and cut into a long thin strip and fill with your sausage meat.
10) Finally bake them until golden brown around 30 minutes. Delicious !



2 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this recipe! Haven't had a sausage roll since I lived in Sydney many years ago, but crave them often and they are not to be had, here in the states. The filling sounds like the perfect mouthful of flavor I remember - I'll be making them soon.

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  2. hi there, good to hear from the blue ridge mountains. i used to live in Virginia when i was very young and spent some time in later years trekking through the appalachian trail - stunning! Good luck with your sausage rolls.

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