Sausage Rolls For Christmas Various

Puff Pastry, Nigels favourite!

Mmmm the sausage roll. Wonderful when hot, moorish when cold. A Christmas time must & no party is complete with out a plate full on the food table! Over the years we have become lazy & been seduced by the quick bake frozen packs of pork mush surrounded by uncooked pastry we can just shove in the oven gas mark blah & out comes a plate full of sort of home baked rolls! Or we are even more seduced by the easy party food, packs of soggy puff pastry rolls full of preservatives & other unsavory ingredients.
I used to do the same. But every Christmas or party mum would make proper sausage rolls, which have always been unsurpassed.
I have finally found packs of sausage meat here & have decided to go the route of making my own. My efforts are trial & error & not particularly good looking but i am sure they will get better as I practice more.
Here are my three trials, all tasty in their different ways
Any suggestions or recipe's will be thankfully recieved & tried :-)

Love this pastry light short crust, but over all they were a bit dry so the plan is to change the filling recipe & see what happens then. These were my very first homemade sausage rolls ever :-) Not very pretty but authentic looking ;-D Made with just sausage meat, garlic & thyme.

These are made with bought filo pastry sheets but the filling is different. These were very scrummy, light crispy pastry & very moorish. Made with sausage meat, onion & thyme, but I still prefer a homemade pastry.

These are by far the best, very tasty & will be on my Christmas table along with the same mix in puff pastry (for differing tastes) Here is my recipe.......

Filling

1 pack Sausage meat

1/2 an Onion  chopped small

1 tsp Thyme

1 tsp Sage

3 Rashers streaky bacon cut into small pieces

So pretty simple mix all the above ingredients together by hand or in a food processor, if you are doing it by hand you need to chop the bacon into tiny pieces if you are using a FP then put in the onion & bacon process till chopped small add sausage meat & herbs (at this point you could also add some nutmeg).

I then wrap it in foil & put in the fridge to chill, till the pastry is ready.

Short Crust Pastry

220g flour

55g Butter cold

55g Lard cold

Pinch Salt

3 tbsp Cold water

1 Egg

Sift flour & salt into bowl, add butter & lard chopped up small & with your fingertips rub in to the flour till it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Gradually add the water to form into a soft dough & comes away from the bowl clean. A light touch gives the best pastry!

If you are heavy handed then a food processor is ok.....

Place flour & salt into bowl whizz to get air in. add butter & lard whizz till fine breadcrumbs are formed the through the hopper add the water while machine is running, one tbsp at a time. If the dough doesn't come away from sides add a tiny bit more till it forms the dough.......

Now place the dough in a flattened ball into some cling film & put in fridge for half an hour.

Remove the dough & let it soften for a couple of mins, meanwhile oil a baking sheet & beat an egg.

Lightly flour your surface & roll out the pastry, quite thinly but not so it rips! Cut off the jagged edges, to give a straight edge. Roll your sausage meat into 3 sausage shapes, you may need to sprinkle them with flour as they will be very sticky. Put one of the sausage's on the pastry.  With a pastry brush, brush the pastry with the egg, roll the pastry over the sausage meat cut & press to seal. Do the same with the rest of the meat & pastry (you may need to roll the cut offs). Place on the baking sheet, cut to size & wash with the egg to give a glaze.

Bake in the pre heated oven 220c (200c fan) for 20-25 mins

If you like crisp pastry eat same day,  but I prefer it softer so when they are cold put into an air tight container & leave at least over night.