The secret to the perfect sausage roll
I’m sure many folks have eaten their fair share of sausage rolls over the summer holidays — after all, what’s a Kiwi gathering without a plate of the piping hot morsels?
The freezer aisle provides a trusted sausage roll that, while nothing startling, has remained constant across many years and places of gathering; and in so doing, tastes just like comfort.
But I’m proposing that the humble roll deserves a bit of extra love every now and then — yes, by making one yourself (and why not a giant one, at that?).
All you need is some sausage meat, a few nice aromatics, plenty of juicy sundried tomatoes and pastry.
I’ve simply used sheets of pre rolled puff pastry for this, but I’ve sliced and overlapped them in a pretty pattern so that they wrap around the sausage meat completely, while still looking presentable.
When preparing the meat filling, really use your hands to squeeze and knead the mixture.
This creates a malleable, dough like consistency that will hold together and stay juicy.
Serve this for dinner or an easy work/school lunch — you’ll be the envy of your workmates when you pull out a nice slice of this!
Giant beef, sundried tomato & sage sausage roll
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp coriander seeds, roughly bashed in a pestle and mortar
1 1⁄2 tsp cumin seeds
500g beef sausage meat
100g sundried tomatoes, finely chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh sage
2 tsp picked thyme leaves, finely chopped
1 tsp salt
2 sheets puff pastry (or 300g puff pastry dough, rolled out to a roughly 25x45cm rectangle)
Method
1. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, coriander seeds and cumin seeds. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring frequently, until fragrant and golden brown.
2. Add to a large bowl along with the sausage meat, sundried tomatoes, egg, herbs, salt and a generous season of pepper. Use your hands to mix the dough, squeezing and kneading vigorously to achieve a springy, dough-like texture that holds together.
3. Visually imagine the tray divided vertically into thirds. Lay the strips of pastry horizontally; the first one covering the left and middle third, the next covering the middle and right third, the next covering the left and middle third again, and so on, slightly overlapping each, until all pastry strips are placed in this way. In this pattern, the middle third will have no gaps; the left and right sides will have alternating gaps between pastry strips.
4. Spoon the sausage meat mixture down the centre in an even cylindrical shape — leaving about 3cm at each end. Fold each strip of pastry over the sausage meat; starting with the strips on the left side, then the strips on the right, so that the entire sausage filling is enclosed (essentially, the gaps that remain after folding over the lefthand strips should be covered by the right-hand ones). Fold over the pastry dough at each end to close up. 5. Brush generously with egg wash and bake for 30 minutes, until nicely browned and crisp. 6. Allow to cool slightly before slicing and serving hot, with your favourite tomato sauce. Leftovers can be easily heated in the oven or air fryer.
Olivia Moore and her Taupo¯ business That Green Olive offer recipe development, food photography — in studio or on-location — for restaurants and cafes, recipe video creation and social media content creation. Visit Olivia’s website for more recipes: www.thatgreenolive.com