I like a Sausage Roll ... or two

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I think everyone knows I like a nice pie and a pastie is always nice but I do love a sausage roll as well and I can feel the calories piling up as I write.

I have been on at the wife for years to make some homemade sausage rolls and have even bought all the fixings to make some but I am still waiting, so I will hit the kitchen myself. Therefore, next week it will be my project of the week an oven full of homemade ‘Pete’s Sausage Rolls’. I can’t call them Peter’s because of copyright issues.

I like the plain old sausage roll none of these artisan/posh types with fennel and other ingredients I like them straight up plain. All you need to do is with a sheet or sheets of puff pastry, which you can buy readymade, wrapped the pastry around the sausage meat. If you are inclined to be fancy, you can add something to the filling then glazed with egg or milk before putting them in the oven to bake.

I have my preference of where I purchase them locally. Brutons Independent bakers do a lovely sausage roll along with Rees the butchers. I still bemoan the loss of Franklins the Bakers they sold the best sausage roll I had ever eaten. It’s been a long time but never forgotten, R.I.P Franklins.

I have loved sausage rolls my whole life. They were always the cheapest option for a hot snack, I can remember going around the corner shop to buy one, and how disappointed I would be if they sold out. They had one of those, for a better word, Pie Cabinet on their counter to warm up and keep warm pies, pasties, and sausage rolls. I have probably eaten a lot more bad quality sausage rolls compared to good quality and do prefer small independent bakers like those that I mentioned earlier than the massed produced ones.

If the filling is right, it makes the experience of a sausage roll pleasurable and if the pork is seasoned perfectly & the pastry is flakey with a nice colour all over. For me a soggy bottom is a real turn off or if the bottom looks uncooked.

Sausage rolls are the best party food ever, but why bite size (cocktail) or worst chop up a full size sausage roll to make bite sized because it looks pretty. You end up filling your plate, well I do, and then you are made to feel greedy because your host or whoever allocated two per guest.

I am not sure how popular this British delicacy is worldwide but I do know they are popular in Australia and I suppose New Zealand. You can tell when something is popular the vegetarians mimic it like meat free sausage rolls which I have yet to taste.