Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Picnic Food

Sausage rolls intrigued me enough to look up a recipe and see how difficult they would be to make. I can see why these are often in picnic baskets taken for car rides out in the country. These will also work in a pinch if you have last minute invited extra guests. Super simple to make and they store well.
Mark's English Sausage Rolls

Ingredients

  • 1 (16 ounce) package pork sausage meat
  • 1 (17.25 ounce) package frozen puff pastry sheets, thawed
  • 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
  • 1 beaten egg
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Unfold the puff pastry sheets, and cut along the fold lines of each sheet to form 6 equal squares for a total of 12 squares. Brush each square with mustard. Divide sausage into 12 pieces, and roll into small logs. Place one log on each square. Roll dough around the sausage, and seal with a bit of beaten egg. Place rolls onto an ungreased baking sheet, and brush the tops with the rest of the egg.
3. Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the rolls are puffed and golden. I usually watch after 10 minutes or so to make sure they don't burn. These freeze (unbaked) very well.


Review: Very easy to make. Could be tarted up a bit with seasonings and chopped onions. Tastes good cold as leftovers the next day.

[Betty Keira] Speaking of tarts..I too managed a pretty fair sausage roll this weekend. But instead of using snooty ingredients (eggs can too be snooty!) I went bare bones. Melinda Beatrice Victoria Fairchild Dawlish has to churn these out at a moment's notice. Her vicar father has invited unexpected guests of vast proportions and sophisticated palates! To the sausage rolls!

Mine aren't even faintly English as I tarted them up with Italian sausage. Brown a pound of that, add an 8 oz package of cream cheese and open up an 8oz cylinder of crescent roll dough. Roll the dough out in four rectangles, spoon the mixture in, roll like a jelly roll and bake for 20-25 minutes at 350'. Let sit for 5 minutes until cutting each roll into fourths, diagonally.
So there you go. Culinary genius. They were really quite ugly before I baked them but the taste was pretty good. Perfect for a Superbowl buffet (not that The Betty would have countenanced them for that purpose). Melinda Beatrice Victoria Fairchild Dawlish can rest assured that the family honor will be upheld and the Dutch doctor with the sardonic eye will wolf them down and take himself off satisfied.

Sausage rolls are mentioned in Dearest Mary Jane and Once for All Time.

3 comments:

  1. Betty Suzanne: Did you pre-cook your sausage meat?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I did precook the meat, but I want to try it the other way. They weren't greasy, however, the consistency wasn't quite right. I HIGHLY recommend the mustard.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Claribel also made them for Jake in The Course of True Love...

    ReplyDelete