Black Pudding Sausage Rolls

I like the weird, quirky things about myself. They make me who I am. The sharing of my recollection of how excited I remember being when, due to attending high school, my library card permitted me to take out ten books instead of three made The Thew re-evaluate how square I actually am. However I feel that this coupled with my love of hard house, and my sobriety until 22, gives people something to think about when boxing me up. Not that means I don’t mind being square.  

My quirkiness does extend to food and this is where The Thew has most fun working out how my brain and taste buds work. My unrelenting hatred of whole tomatoes continues to boggle him, as does my reluctance to eat porridge until I have been up and about for an hour. He likes to quiz me on food items and my reasons for not liking them and/or the restrictions I have on time of day, dish and situations I’ll eat them in. 

For someone who can be fussy about things I love fish and shellfish, something that I have to put down to the Irish side of my family living by the sea and eating it all the time. I spent days out on the rocks hacking off barnacles and dropping them on the top of Momo’s range to cook in their shells. The Irish use of black pudding, and white, at breakfast has stayed with me and I happily eat it when my other random food issues would lead people to believe I’d avoid it. Therefore when thinking about another type of sausage roll to make I thought that I would use black pudding. I love scotch eggs that use it in the mixture so why not? They came out well, if you like black pudding, with the sausage giving it stability in the roll but not distracting from the flavour of the pudding. Very good hot and not at all bad cold if I do say so myself.

Ingredients

300g good quality black pudding (it's not expensive but get a good one as the spices will come out)

1 x pack of plain pork sausages (about 350g but a bit more or less won't really hurt)

1 x pack ready rolled puff pastry

1 egg, beaten 

1.    Preheat the oven to 190°C/GM 5.

2.    Crumble the black pudding into a bowl. Add the sausage and mix them together. Hands are best. I'd recommend adding less sausages to begin with and then fry off a very small patty in a pan to taste it. If you think it needs more sausage then add it but worth testing out the taste before committing to it (this also works when making stuffing).

3.    Roll out the pastry on a floured surface so it’s a little wider and longer. Cut in two along the middle so you have two thin rectangles of pastry.

4.    Place half the mixture in a sausage down each bit of pastry, wash one edge with egg and roll the pastry over the mixture to form the roll. Press down the edges and cut the rolls to your desired size.

5.    Place on a non-stick baking tray, or on greaseproof paper, wash with more egg on top and bake for about 20 minutes. If you are making smaller ones then 15 minutes should do it.

6.    Cool and serve. Easy!

Makes 16-24 depending on how small you cut them up.

Jetlag Sausage Bake

I always find that aeroplane food, especially after a holiday that involved a lot of good food, puts a bit of a dent in the end of the trip. This time I decided to not really eat on the plane but brought some peanuts and raisins in the hope that they would keep hunger pangs at bay for 11 hours. It also meant I got to try out a jetlag cure which says you shouldn’t eat while travelling over time zones and wait until the next meal time when you land, before eating again. I sort of kept to it – I ate some cheese pasta and a yoghurt because peanuts and raisins get fairly dull – and actually now don’t feel too bad. However this could be attributed to my determination to stay awake for about 26 hours (give or take a couple of short naps) and then sleep for about 10 hours. I can’t say it was entirely scientific.

Coming home always means that you’re not only dealing with the down from the end of a holiday but all the clothes washing and the restocking of the kitchen as well. Today I really couldn’t be bothered with much hassle at dinner and The Thew is on a massive health kick due to ‘overindulgence’ on holiday (we have differing view on what constitutes overindulgence but I’m sure I’ll get on to that in time) and the fact that he has to run 66 miles in a couple of weekends time. He also does the washing up so I thought I should be nice to him.

This is where the Jetlag Sausage Bake comes in. It’s basically things still in my fridge and a few things I could pick up on my way home. To be honest you could chuck most things in and it would work but below is what I put in.

Ingredients

1 pack of good quality sausages

1 large sweet potato

3 or 4 small to medium carrots

1 red pepper

1 red onion

A few slices of chorizo

1 blub of garlic

Some dried herbs

1.   Preheat the oven to 200° or GM6.

2.   Chop the sausages in half (or not but I like how it looks), chop the sweet potato, carrots, pepper and onion into fairly large pieces. Chuck them all into a baking tray. Add the chorizo.

3.   Cut the garlic blub in half and add to the rest of the ingredients. You can just use cloves and less garlic but I just like how the bottom of the bulb looks in the tray!

4.   Season and add some dried herbs. I went heavy on the sage because of the sausages but whatever you have will work.

5.   Add some oil and whack in the oven for about 45 minutes. Done.

6.   Eat straight from the tray if you want to minimise the washing up.

Spicy Chorizo Sausage Rolls

Mondays aren’t the most amazing day of the week for people but for me once the working hours are done there is a feeling of the week having started and energy levels rising. I used to play netball on a Monday but when that finished I thought that I should put the night, and energy, to good use and start to expand my baking. There are so many recipes I want to try but find myself making the same things – mainly because those are the ingredients I have in my cupboard and fridge. I also want to start putting more personal twists on things so Mondays will become my night to bake.

It just so happens that I have an order to fulfil tonight (I said I’d bake in exchange for a favour).These have proved so ridiculously popular that I’m normally asked for these, over cake, if people are given the choice. The fact that I use ready rolled puff pastry does mean that these can be done really fast and considering my kitchen is tiny, and heats up fast, making pastry isn’t always on option. I also have ‘hot hands’ so when making pastry I tend to have to keep putting it in the fridge which I really can’t be bothered with!

Best eaten hot but most people only get them cold because I bring them into work. The heat comes from the spices, not the chorizo, so you can adjust to taste. Fresh chilli might also work but I prefer ground spice for these.

Ingredients

1 x pack of 8 pork sausages

1 x pack of ready rolled puff pastry

2 x smaller cooking chorizo or about 1/3 of a chorizo ring, chopped into small chunks

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cayenne pepper (less or more depending on how spicy you want it)

½ tsp very hot chilli powder (I use Barts as everything else just seems weak compared to it)

1 egg, whisked (milk will do)

1.    Pre-heat an oven to GM5 or 190°.

2.    Remove the skin from the sausages and put in a bowl. I have made these – by accident – with reduced fat sausages and it worked. You just don’t get the wonderful colour from the chorizo and paprika oozing into the pastry as much. It does seem to give a firmer sausage in the middle so try whatever you like.

3.    Add the chorizo and spices and mix together. I always start with a wooden spoon and then realise I just need to get my hand dirty. I tend to have some water in the sink so I can do quick rinses without getting the taps dirty but I’m weird like that.

4.    Roll out the pastry a bit more as I don’t find the pack size is big enough and the pastry is too thick for a sausage roll. Just a little bit longer and wider should do it. Cut in half lengthways.

5.    Divide the sausage meat in two and roll between your hands so it fit the length of the pastry strips. Egg wash one edge of each strip, fold the other side of the pastry over the meat and seal by pressing along the join with a fork. I find something deeply satisfying in creating the fork impressions in pastry.

6.    Cut into each long roll into your desired sizes – I tend to get 8 out of each – and place on a baking tray (or two) and wash with the egg. Then cut a small hole in the top of each (I use scissors) and there you go.

7.    Pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes. If you’re using two trays and they are on different shelves the ones on the lower shelf might need more time. You basically want them to go golden and look like the picture. Then they’re done.

8.    Eat.