From Mark, YMCA’s Executive Chef
These are perfect to make in advance and freeze – then simply cook from frozen when you fancy them, and great for making with the kids on rainy days.
You will need:
- Ready rolled puff pastry (shop bought, life is too short to make puff pastry!)
- Your favourite sausages (fresh, not frozen as you can’t refreeze meat)
- Christmas chutney (any chutney will do, onion, fig or even Branston)
- Egg for glaze
Method:
Remove the skins from the sausages and discard them, just slice down the length of sausage with a sharp knife and peel.
Unravel the puff pastry (best to get out of the fridge and let it warm up to room temp in advance, it stops it cracking when unravelling). Cut the pastry in half longways so you have two wide rectangles. Top tip: leave the greaseproof paper underneath the pastry and work on this surface to stop it sticking.
Next, lay out the skinless sausages, end to end, onto the ready rolled puff pastry along the length, at this point add chutney along the sausages.
Whisk the egg and brush some of it onto the pastry along the length, then fold the pastry over to make one big, long sausage roll, pressing down with the join about 1cm.
Use a fork along the pastry and press down on the join to crimp the edges together (see the picture), then using a sharp knife cut each sausage roll to whatever size you want (usually about 4cm), keep wiping down the knife to make clean cuts.
At this point if you want to freeze them, wrap in greaseproof and place in a freezable bag. If you want to cook them straight away, place them on a greaseproof baking tray and brush each one with the remaining beaten egg, getting it in the nooks and crannies.
Bake at 180°C for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden and the sausages are cooked through. Leave for 10-15 minutes once cooked as the chutney will be hot.
