Sausage Rolls with currants, pine nuts & Kraut
This is one of my favourite recipes; it uses Southern Italian agrodolce ingredients (meaning sweet and sour) which work perfectly with salty, fatty pork and buttery pastry. I've been making these for a long time, but they're something quite different with the addition of the kraut, it lightens them and adds an extra layer to the flavours. Hanne Cole.
Makes 12 sausage rolls
1kg sausage meat
2 red onions
4 large cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small bunch of parsley
5 sprigs of thyme
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
3 teaspoons fennel seeds
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
100g pine nuts
100g currants
2 rolls all-butter puff pastry
3 eggs lightly beaten
Start by finely chopping the red onion and the garlic cloves. Heat the oil in a frying pan on a low heat and fry off the onion and garlic until translucent and golden, this may take 10mins or so. Strip the leaves from the thyme and chop, stir into the frying onion mix. Add the chilli flakes and fennel seeds and fry for a further few minutes to release their fragrance. Take the mix off the heat and cool. In a large bowl, mix the sausage meat, chopped parsley, sugar, vinegar, pine nuts, currants, kraut and finally the onion mix. Season to taste; this will largely depend on the sausage meat mix, ask your butcher if it is seasoned and if necessary, fry off a tiny bit and taste to get an idea of how much salt and pepper you wish to add. Using your hands, make sure all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.
Unroll the puff pastry onto a floured surfaced. You can, of course, make your own puff, but some corners need cutting. Make sure that any cracks are pushed together and roll it out to approximately 1.5 its original length, and a couple of extra inches in width. Do this to both sheets. Now evenly split the sausage mix between the two and pull out into a thick tube in the middle of the pastry, even girth end to end. Now fold one side of the pastry over and brush with a little of the egg, then fold the other on top and brush all over. Repeat to the other pastry sheet and mix. Now cut the large sausages into 6 and score a line through the middle of the pastry on each of the sausage rolls.
Place the sausage rolls onto lined baking sheets, with about an inch between them. Bake at 180 for approximately 30 minutes, or until the pastry is nicely golden. If you're concerned about the sausage meat not being cooked, use a temperature probe to ensure the centre is above 70 degrees.
Enjoy with freshly fermented kraut on the side and a glass of water kefir!
