Sausage Rolls

This recipe is from Delia Smiths Christmas Cookbook, a book I love!

Makes 24

For the flaky pastry:

8oz (225g) plain flour

6oz (175g) butter (hard from fridge)

a pinch salt

cold water to mix

For the filling:

1lb good quaility pork sausage meat

1 tsp sage

1 onion, grated

1 beaten egg to glaze

pre-heat oven to gas mark 7, 220 c

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Get the butter out of the fridge and dip it into the flour and then grate it on a course grater placed in the bowl over the flour. Keep dipping the butter down into the flour to make it easier to grate.

At the end you'll be left with a pile of grated butter in the middle of the flour, so take a palette knife and start to distribute it into the flour (don't use your hands), try to coat all the pieces of butter with flour until the mixture is crumbly. Next add enough water to form a dough that leaves the bowl clean, using your hands bring it all gently together. Put the dough into a polythene bag and chill it for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

When you're ready to make the sausage rolls mix the sausage meat, onion and sage together in a mixing bowl. Then roll out the pastry onto a floured surface to form an oblong (as thin as you can). Cut this oblong into three strips and divide the sausage meat also into three, making three long rolls the same length as the strips of pastry (if it's sticky sprinkle on some flour).

Place one roll of sausage meat on to one strip of pastry. Brush the beaten egg along one edge, then fold the pastry over and seal it as carefully as possible. Lift the whole thing up and turn it so the sealed edge is underneath. Please lightly and cut into individual rolls each about 2" long. Snip three v-shapes in the top of each roll with scissors and brush with beaten egg. Repeat all this with the other portions of meat and pastry.

If you are going to cook straightaway, place the rolls on baking sheets and bake high in the oven for 20-25 minutes. If you want to cook them later, store them uncooked in a freezer box and freeze until needed. Although you can store the cooked and cooled sausage rolls in an airtight tin, they do loose their crunchiness. For this reason I think it's preferable to remove a few at a time from the freezer and cook them as required.