Home made sausage rolls: worth the faff?

[MorrisZapp]

I've never made sausage rolls before but we've got friends coming round next weekend for drinks and a buffet. I quite fancied giving it a go, is it worth it? And if so, is there a simple and failsafe recipe/ method? I'm not a skilled cook as you can probably guess 😊

Yes - just buy fresh puff pastry, sausage meat, roll them into a long sausage roll, egg wash and sesame seeds and stick them in the oven - delicious! There are loads of recipes online.

Delia is always my go-to for things like this! As well as pork sausagemeat sausage rolls, she has a lovely one for vegetarian ones in her Christmas book.

Here

I don't bother making the pastry, but buy a pack of ready-rolled puff pastry and use that instead.

Ooh yes ready made pastry is a given! Is sausage meat beside the sausages in the supermarket?

Homemade anything is best OP. They’ll be delicious!

They are very easy. Buy puff pastry and roll it out, quite thinly.
Take the skin off the sausages (I usually do 3) and add the sausage meat to a large bowl. Add 3 tablespoons cold water and mix
Cut the pastry into strips, about 2 inches wide.
Put a roll of sausage meat onto one side of the pastry strip.
Brush each side of the pastry strip with beaten egg.
Fold the pastry over to cover the sausage meat. Cut into small rectangles ( sausage roll size). Brush each with beaten egg.
Bake at around 160 fan, until pastry looks done.
Good luck.

No faff at all. Buy ready rolled puff pastry (if you can get all butter version even better), buy a pack of 6 quality pork sausages.

Cut your pastry in half length wise, take the casing off the sausages, put 3 on each half of the pastry, brush the edge with egg wash, roll up, cut, put on an oven tray, egg wash, cook for c.20 mins in a hot oven - delish!

www.deliaonline.com/cookery-school/techniques/sausage-rolls

I think is what I do - it's well worth making the pastry ( it can be butter or a lard/ butter mix )

It's one of the few family specials that people see as a real treat

Yes. Life is too short for making one's own puff pastry, so buy all butter puff pastry from M&S. I like to use the meat from high meat-content sausages (e.g. Sainsbury's finest) as filling, with a little garlic and tomato purée mixed in. The result is much, much better than anything pre-made and no more expensive.

Making puff pastry is never worth the faff. Assembling your own with ready made puff, is infinitely better. Just buy good quality sausage meat and experiment with different flavouring. Grated apple, cranberry sauce, blue cheese, various herbs are all good.

I don't think I have seen sausage meat in a supermarket before (or maybe I wasn't looking for it). We buy a tube of sausage meat from local butchers to make our sausage rolls. If you don't have a butchers then get good quality (please god not Richmond or such like) sausages from the supermarket and take the skins off. Add some of your own seasoning if you wish and follow as PP said above.

If I could edit - it's a rough puff pastry that is quick and easy not proper puff but we prefer it to puff pastry now

Wholemeal mustard or caramelised onion chutney both also work well with the sausage meat.

Sausagemeat should be easy to find at this time of year because lots of us use it for Christmas stuffing. I would buy that rather than faff about taking the skins off sausages. Mix with finely chopped onion and a little dried sage. I think that's what Delia recommends. Not difficult at all to make sausage rolls if you use ready-made pastry. They look a lot better if you go to the effort of brushing them with a little beaten egg (or milk, I think) before baking. Gives a nice brown gloss.

Just buy good quality sausages, squeeze out of the skins and roll in shop bought puff pastry.

You can use your favourite sausages (just remove the skin). There'll be lots of sausage meat in the supermarket on the run up to Christmas. Add some herbs to the mix for extra flavour. Put a seam of Branston along the length, or some other mix (mango chutney cranberry sauce etc)

They're delicious! I cheat by using chipolatas and ready rolled puff pastry.

Each puff pastry sheet can be cut in half or even thirds, run 3 chipolatas down the middle of each half / third. Bit of mustard on the sausages and fold over, crimp edge with a fork. Think it was a Jamie Oliver recipe and he puts parmesan or sesame seeds on top with egg wash. Definitely worth making 👌

You want to use some really special sausages rather than standard sausage meat. My favourites are lamb + mint and pork + apple, as well as spicy beef sausages (from an independent butcher).

I buy sausages, use the point of a vegetable knife to slit the skin along the length of each sausages then peel the skin off. All you have to do then is make super- sausages x 4 ie 3 sausages each by using your fingers to join them. Finally, gently roll the super-sausages to make them the same length as the sheet of puff pastry. This is much easier than using sausage meat, honestly!

I have done with bought puff pastry and Delia's flakey pastry, which is a rough puff style. Absolutely delicious. Life is too short to consider making proper puff pastry.

We always make our own and it's well worth it. DH does the pastry as he's best at it. We use Delia's recipe and it always turns out beautifully. We get our sausage meat from the farm shop but I'm sure they'll have it in supermarkets too.

They freeze well too so you can make them ahead of time and refresh them in the oven on the day.

I always put finely chopped onion, sage and black pepper into plain sausage meat. I buy the meat from the butcher.
I never make my own puff pastry.

Oh this is just brilliant! Thank you all so much. I'll whip up a trial batch tonight. Slightly embarrassed not to know that sausage meat is just... sausages 😂

I've made them.

They were nice but no nicer than the ones I can buy from the local butcher. Personally I wouldn't bother again, especially if I was buying pre-made pastry.

@BigFatLiar that is an excellent point. A thought, you know you can get sausage meat stuffing for xmas, I am wondering if that would work also, xmas flavoured sausage rolls......

I do chorizo, onion, paprika and sausage meat (normally just skinned sausages). Fry off the onion and then add finely chopped chorizo and plenty of paprika.