Cafe Lula

Look at these. They lasted about 20 minutes. My nan has been making sausage rolls since I was very little and I don’t know how many times she’s been requested to make them over the years. They’re so good that I assumed they must be difficult to make, but, and it seems so obvious when you think about it, you only really need two ingredients and they can be ready to go in the oven in less than 15 minutes.

Plain sausage rolls are yummy, but a recent issue of delicious magazine had a new idea in; fill the pastry with parma ham and cheese. I tried it. It was ace.

I’m including some pictures in case my explanation isn’t very clear. The first thing to do is to roll out the puff pastry. I used Jus-rol ready to roll. You can make your own puff pastry of course, but my nan has always said that the shop bought stuff is perfectly fine and I trust her judgement. Roll it out as thin as you possibly can without it tearing. Then cover half of it with parma ham and cheese.

Fold the uncovered half over the covered half and press down gently, starting in the middle, to get the air out. then fold the edges over to seal and roll it out again as thin as you can, being careful not to tear it. Once this is done, cut the skins off the sausages and lay them two to a row equally spaced. If they don’t quite reach across the width of the pastry, roll them with your hands to stretch them out a bit. Check the spacing by rolling the pastry from left to right over the first row of sausages. Mark where this reaches and unroll again. If this is roughly a third, cut the pastry into three equally sized strips. If the first lot of sausages use more than a third, roll the pastry out a bit thinner. Once you are ready to roll the sausage rolls, brush the edges of each strip of pastry with some beaten egg to seal. Roll the pastry over so that the join is on the bottom and press down to seal well. Cut each roll into pieces, however big you want the sausage rolls. Then brush the top of each sausage roll with some beaten egg and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Ham and cheese sausage rolls

Based on a recipe by my nan and an idea from the May 2011 issue of delicious magazine

Makes 18ish, depending how big you cut them

Ingredients:

500g puff pastry (I used Jus-roll ready to roll, but any will do, you could even make your own)

400g your favourite sausages, skins removed (I used tomato, cheddar and pork)

6 slices parma ham

80g medium cheddar

1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 180C. Roll the puff pastry out as thin as possible without tearing it. Cover half of the pastry with the parma ham and cheddar. Fold the uncovered half over the covered half and press to get all the air out, then seal the edges. Roll out again as thin as possible without tearing (although any tears can be pressed together again).

Lay the sausages in three rows of two, equally spaced along the length of the pastry. Make sure that the pastry is rolled out big enough by rolling the first section over the first lot of sausages and checking how much of the pastry this uses. If the sausages do not reach all the way across, roll them with your hands to stretch them out a bit.

Once the pastry is the correct size, cut it into three strips. Paint the edges of each strip with beaten egg where the seal will be, then roll over to fully enclose the meat and seal the edges well. Cut each strip into pieces, as big as you want the sausage rolls. I cut each strip into six.

Put the sausage rolls on a baking tray (you might need two) and paint the tops with beaten egg. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.