Food is my passion, I don’t just eat it, I cook it. I love love love love food – the different textures, tastes, everything about food. I can spend 8 to 10 hours in the kitchen cooking up a storm… though I have chilled on spending excessive hours in the kitchen in recent years. I am always looking up recipes, finding new ways to use available foods and the best part – EATING the food 🙂 I must confess there were months where all I made were the basics (somewhat boring/routine) – rice, stew, salad and so on. I have recently revisited making different meals, motivated by the prices of things out there and the fact that the basics are boring.

Last weekend, I had my nieces over (adorable 6 year old triplets). That meant 5 children (my two children included) to look after. I decided to treat them to some homemade popsicles and sausage rolls. The girls were very excited about this and they bugged me till we made them. I had not made sausage rolls in a long time but I like my pastry light and flaky. I looked up different pastry recipes and ended up picking Delia Smith’s quick flaky pastry. I am glad I picked Delia’s recipe, the outcome was exactly what i expected. I really enjoyed making these and I therefore made a second batch two days ago. The children also loved them, my nieces asked to take some home with them.

I thought it will be nice to share this experience with you. Here’s the recipe I used.

Sausage rolls

Makes about 30 mini rolls

For the pastry:
225g plain flour
Pinch of salt
175g butter (straight from the refrigerator)
1/2 cup very cold water
1 egg, beaten 

For the filling:
500g sausage meat
1 teaspoon dry pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ginger powder
2 teaspoons dry parsley

1. Sift the flour, add the salt, and grate in the butter. Stir them together with a wooden spoon, till the mixture becomes crumb-like. Pour the cold water in bit by bit, using your hands to turn the mixture into a ball-like dough. Wrap in the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least half an hour.
2. In a bowl, use a spoon to mix the sausage meat, dry pepper, garlic powder, ginger powder and dry parsley together. It is best to do this just before rolling out your dough.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
4. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible on a floured surface, taking care to flour your rolling pin if the pastry starts to stick to it. Cut off the rough edges of the pastry and cut the rest of the pastry into three strips.
5. Spoon some sausage meat on to one edge of each strip of pastry.
6. Brush the beaten egg on the other edge of the pastry, then fold the pastry over to seal the strip. Cut the rolled pastry into small rolls – 3cm  long.
7. Brush each roll with beaten egg and place on an already prepared oven tray (lined with a baking sheet).
8. Place rolls in the pre-heated oven for 25 minutes. Bring the rolls out of the oven once they are cooked.
9. Serve, eat, enjoy 🙂

P.S. I am still experimenting the with filling and will post the recipe once I finish tweaking it.