There are sausage rolls and there are Graham Garrett's sausage rolls.
You sometimes wonder why you bother when you eat sausage rolls from a packet, but when you make these yourself and they're still warm they're sensational.
This recipe is from Graham Garrett's brilliantly titled book Sex & Drugs & Sausage Rolls, which follows Graham's transformation from rock star to Michelin-starred chef.
In the book you'll find more than 50 recipes, from a simple way to make great butter to Miso-glazed Mackerel with Yuzu Mayonnaise to Catalan Trifle, with influences drawn from American, British, Indian, Japanese, Russian and Thai cuisines – an amalgamation of cultures in the kitchen resulting in a unique collection of dishes.
Sausage Rolls
Ingredients: Serves 8 (sex & drugs, optional)
for the filling
- 1 banana shallot, peeled & finely chopped
- 1kg of your favourite pork sausagemeat
- 100g diced foie gras, optional
- small black truffle (tinned is fine)
for the rough puff pastry
- 225g plain flour
- 3g fine sea salt
- 300g chilled butter
- iced water
To make the filling, sweat the shallot in a little vegetable oil until soft, then mix into all the other filling ingredients. Using a large sheet of cling film form the mixture into a long sausage shape. Chill it in the fridge until ready to use.
To make the rough puff pastry, put the flour, salt and butter into a food processor and roughly pulse. Make sure you don’t turn it into a fine breadcrumb-type mix, you want big lumps of butter. Add just enough water to just bring it together, the pastry should be fairly dry. Flatten your dough and shape into a rough rectangle and chill it in the fridge for a few minutes to firm up.
Roll the pastry into a rectangle a couple of centimetres thick. Fold the top third down to the centre, then the bottom third up and over that. Give the dough a quarter turn (to the left or right) and roll it out again to three times the length. Fold as before, and cover with cling film. You can now store it in the fridge or freezer until required.
Roll out your pastry to a thickness of about 5mm. Trim to create a straight edge. Unwrap your sausage and place on the pastry along the straight edge. Roll over in the pastry and cut along the length of the sausage roll. Place on a parchment-lined baking tray then brush with egg yolk.
Bake at 200°C for 20 minutes.
For an extra glaze and flavour boost, while still warm brush with an equal mix of black treacle and Marmite.
Using a serrated knife, slice into sausage rolls of whatever size you fancy.
Serve warm with Madeira sauce or with your favourite gravy or a good dollop of HP sauce.
Sex & Drugs & Sausage Rolls, by Graham Garrett (Face Publications, £35), is available from facepublications.com