Sausage Roll Tutorial

I really hope I'm posting this in time for Christmas! I've blogged before that I loosely base my sausage rolls on this recipe from RecipeZaar, but I thought I would do a complete tutorial to show you what I do.

I used to use whole sausages and pie pastry for my sausage rolls but Hubby hates sausage (I know weird) and Dallas didn't like pie pastry on the rolls. I had to come up with something that both of them liked. I now use ground pork and puff pastry and the two of them both love this recipe, it's a winner!

Mouth watering, flaky, tender, as spicy as you like, delicious!

Flaky Sausage Rolls

You'll need:
Ground pork
Breadcrumbs
Onion
Puff pastry (make sure to thaw it in the fridge the night before or take it out of the freezer at room temp for two hours before making recipe!)
Spices (substitute whatever you like)

Italiano
Hy's seasoning salt
Salt
Pepper
Parsley

Eggs
Milk

Now you don't need "exactly" the same as me. You can substitute any or all the spices for what you like. You can buy pre-ground pork or grind your own, I've done both and they turn out great no matter which one you choose. Today I used leftover buns I had in the freezer to make my breadcrumbs but store bought, fresh or dry, is fine. Experiment and have fun!

As for measurements... well I'm not a measuring kind of gal, so I often guess, that way nothing ever tastes the same. I'll give you the approximate measurements I used today, with these measurements I ended up with about 150 mini sausage rolls. Feel free to cut the recipe in half, and these also freeze beautifully so don't worry about making lots :)

Four pounds of ground pork.

I used 6 buns and threw them in the blender to make breadcrumbs, roughly 2 cups. Add them to the ground pork.

Add about 2 medium sized finely chopped onions depending on how much you like onions.

Add your spices. Roughly 3 tablespoons each of Italiano, Hy's Seasoning salt, and Parsley. About 2 tablespoons of salt and 1 tablespoon of pepper. Mix well. If you don't have a mixer just dig in with your hands, or use gloves, and if you don't have gloves you can slip bread bags over your hands. After finishing I found the rolls could have been a bit spicier, next time I would add more Italiano and maybe a touch more pepper.

Pour in about 1 cup of milk, enough to make it look sloppy.

Mix two eggs with about 1/2 cup of milk

Tenderflake Puff Pastry. With the amount of pork I used (4 lbs) you'll need at least 3.5 packages of pastry.

Roll out on a floured pastry board.

12 inches.

By 14 inches.

Use a piping bag with no nozzle. Place into a large glass and fill with pork mixture.

Pipe it on the long side of your pastry.

Roll it over.

Use the egg/milk mixture.

Use a pizza cutter to cut alongside, then roll up to seal.

If your measurements are close to mine you should end up with three rolls from one block. I like to do all three rolls, one right after the other. Line them up so they are even on your pastry board. Then you can either use the pizza wheel to "thump" score marks at two inch intervals...

...or take a knife and make your score marks across all three at the same time.

Use your pizza wheel to whip across all three strips.

You should end up with this:

Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet, I find these stick so I like to spray a light coating of Pam. Poke a couple of times with a fork.

Dab on egg/milk mixture. Use sparingly, the egg/milk turns quite dark if it pools around the rolls.

Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes, turn oven down to 400 and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes.