Sunday, 31 January 2016

Nicola's Sausage Rolls

Finally losing the last remnants of a major hangover due to another amazing party. My eldest had reached the great age of 25 years so it was a really good excuse for him and his fiancé to throw a bash. They do throw a criminally great party, lots of amazing food, drink and great company. The food was amazing, throwing open the BBQ in January to impose amazing smoked flavours onto a couple of brined joints. Astonishing. Well the request was put out to me to bring a supply of my sausage rolls which had been appreciated at the last bash, again recipes were requested but I don't really follow one so this is just going to be some info as to what I use and how it comes together.

Ingredients

 2x Waitrose Gourmet Sausage meat
2x Heston's Streaky Bacon , cut across into chunks
6 Large onions ,  halved and sliced
2x Bread slices, breadcrumbed
1x Sage, cut bottoms off and finely chop
1xThyme, cut bottoms off and finely chop
 2 Red chilli , not two packs
2x Puff pastry , all butter version (yummy)
1-2 Eggs to mix in, as well as seal and glaze
Balsamic Vinegar

Into a frying pan place the finely sliced onions and put on a medium heat to sweat and then caramelise. This needs to be done until a good dark colour is reached. Place two thirds in a mixing bowl to cool and one third needs to be mixed with a good splash of Balsamic Vinegar, continue to cook until the liquid becomes syrupy.
Next cut up the bacon into fine chunks, fry until a good crispy texture is reached. Remove from the pan to cool.
Blitz 2 slices of any bread in a processor to make breadcrumbs.
Place into a bowl the Sausage meat, the cooled bacon, the cooled caramilized onion (not the syrupy ones), add the breadcrumbs and at least one beaten egg.
Finely cut up 2/3rds (too much may make the rolls bitter) of the thyme and sage and add to the mixing bowl. Then finely chop two deseeded chillies and add to the bowl.
Prepare two baking sheets with baking parchment.

Unroll the sheet of Puff pastry onto a floured board and roll out until it is almost a third bigger than when it started both in width and length, too thin and the rolls will break. Cut a horizontal line across the middle of the longest length, egg wash the edge and then place along the middle of both sections some of the combined mixture. Along the edge of both place some of the syrup onions. Carefully roll over to seal the edge and ends and place onto a baking tray. Repeat for the other tray.


Place into a preheated oven at 200C, then cook to a golden colour approximately 30 minutes but keep checking from 20 minutes (I'm paranoid they will burn). Remove from the oven, rest on the tray for 10 minutes, then move to a cooling rack so we don't get soggy bottoms! Do NOT cut until cool. Slice diagonally and eat the end bits as your treat!!!!