This is lovely to make as the main part of a family dinner or for a special gathering. Shop bought puff pastry tastes excellent; but buy the all butter kind as its as good as homemade. Also, use the best sausage meat you can for a delightfully lean and deliciously rich taste. Effectively a massive sausage roll, this really is something everyone can enjoy!
Serves 6
1/2 Onion, finely diced
450g Pork Sausage Meat
1/2 Lemon, finely grated zest
50g Sun-Blushed Tomatoes, finely chopped *If you can't get hold of these, find the strongest tasting tomatoes you can*
2tbsp Chopped Parsley
1tbsp Chopped Thyme Leaves
1x375g packet of ready rolled, all butter Puff Pastry
Plain Flour for dusting
1 Egg, beaten
Salt and Black Pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 220'C/200'C fan/Gas 7.
2. For the filling, tip the onion into a small saucepan, cover with water and boil for about 5 mins or until tender. Drain and set aside to cool.
3. Measure the sausage meat into a bowl, add the lemon zest, chopped tomatoes and herbs, season with salt and pepper and mix with your hands to combine. Add the cooled onion and mix again.
4. Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured work surface into a rectangle roughly 20x40cm (8x16in) in size and about the thickness of a £1 coin. Transfer to a sheet of baking paper.
5. Arrange the sausage meat lengthways in the middle of the pastry, leaving a margin of about a third of the pastry either side and about 5cm (2in) at each end. Brush all over with some of the beaten egg. Fold up the two ends of the pastry over the sausage meat. Leaving a gap of about 1cm (1/2in) from the sausage meat, cut the pastry on either side into long strips about 2cm (3/4in) wide. Fold each strip on top of the sausage meat, alternating from side to side to create a plait.
6. Brush the top of the pastry and the ends with more beaten egg and carefully slide the non stick paper, with the sausage plait on top, onto the hot baking sheet.
*Alternatively you can already have placed this on the tray after step 4.*
7. Bake for about 35 mins or until golden brown all over and brown and crisp on the bottom. Serve hot.
*Freezes well cooked or uncooked*
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