Prep Time: 90 minutes
Bake Time: 40 minutes
Makes 12 Sausage Rolls
Ingredients:
For Short Crust Pastry:
3 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
11/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons water
1 1/2 cup of butter (3 sticks), chilled
For the filling:
240g (Approximately 1 small pack) of baby portobello mushrooms
2 tbsp Thyme leaves
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 stick (1oz) salted butter
2 white onions, finely diced
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp raspberry vinaigrette
12 oz sausage meat
1 egg white to glaze
Method:
1. First make the pastry, mix the flour and salt.
2. Cut the butter into cubes, keep chilled.
3. Add the cubed butter to the four and salt and touching lightly with your fingers only, incorporate the butter until it is a crumbly mixture resembling bread crumbs.
Note: another method is to grate the butter into the flour and then incorporate with your fingers only till it gets to the bread crumb texture.
4. Add the water a table spoon at a time and mold the mixture into a ball.
5. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill.
6. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
7. For the filling, put the mushrooms in a food processor and season with salt, pepper and thyme. to taste. Grind the mushroom to a smooth consistency.
8. Put the mushroom paste in a pan over medium heat. Cook until all the moisture has evaporated from the mushrooms. Set aside to cool.
9. In a separate pan, heat the oil, butter, onions and sugar over medium heat then reduce to a lower setting and cook slowly until the onions are caramelised. Then stir in the raspberry vinaigrette.
10. To assemble, roll out the pastry and cut out 12 rectangles, roughly 14 x 8 in.
11. Divide the mushroom mixture into 12 portions, divide the caramelized onion paste into twelve portions, and the sausage into 12 portions.
12. Assemble each sausage by spreading a portion of the mushroom mixture down the centre of each rectangle pastry. leaving an approximately 1.5 in gap at the top and bottom. Next add a portion of the sausage and top with the caramelized onion.
13. Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut 0.5 to 1in diagonal stripes starting one inch away from the filling. The top and bottom of the pastry will be triangle, of sorts.
14. Plait the roll by laying the stripes over the filling in alternating pattern. Then fold over the top and bottom triangle to cradle it like a shoe.
15. Repeat eleven more times, placing each finished roll on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
16. Brush with egg white
17. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the pastry is golden-brown.