Picnic food is very handy for parties as children can grab food in their hand and eat without the need for cutlery. See if you can restrain the kids from eating these sausage rolls warm straight from the oven. Sausage meat does tend to contain high salt levels so make sure you check with your butcher/packaging before feeding it to small people.

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I “hide” some fruit in my sausage mixture by grating in an apple which balances off the salty pork sausage meat, a grated carrot in the mixture with the apple works very well too. If you can’t buy sausage meat on its own then buy a 250g portion of sausages and squeeze out the meat from the inside, then discard the cases.

I simply cannot master making puff pastry. No matter how hard I try I can’t beat the blocks of shop bought pastry from the freezer cabinet of the supermarket. They save me loads of time and therefore ultimately money! Make sure your pastry block is fully defrosted before cooking with it. Typically pastry blocks come in packs of 2, so you can take 1 out and leave the other in the freezer for another day.

Ingredients

• 250g sausage meat
• 1 green apple (red apples are too sweet for this recipe I find)
• 3 sprigs of thyme (I used lemon thyme)
• 1 block of defrosted puff pastry
• Egg for coating & sticking the edges of the sausage roll

Equipment

• Baking Tray
• Baking parchment/greaseproof paper (make sure it is non stick)
• Rolling Pin
• Flour for dusting (while you roll)
• Large mixing bowl
• Large Spoon
• Sharp knife
• Pastry brush
• Grater
• Peeler

Method

1. Preheat your (fan) oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
2. Line your baking tray or failing that grease and dust with flour.
3. On a clean work-surface roll out your pastry dough to a square about 5mm thick using the flour to dust both the work-surface and the rolling pin to make sure nothing sticks.
4. Cut into 2 long rectangular pieces.
5. Place the sausage meat into the mixing bowl and pick off the leaves of the thyme into the bowl as well.
6. Peel and grate the apple (making sure not to grate the core) into the bowl.
7. Using the spoon make sure all the ingredients in the bowl are well mixed.
8. Visually divide your rectangular pieces of pastry in half, lengthways. Then divide your sausage meat equally between both pieces, making sure to place it on the right hand side of the pastry.
9. Make sure you leave at least 2cm gap at the top.
10. Using the pastry brush, brush around the outside of the rectangles with the egg.
11. Fold the “empty” side of the pastry over the “full” side.
12. Press down the edges to seal the pastry on all sides.
13. Lift your sausage rolls onto the prepared baking tray.
14. Brush the top of the rolls with more egg wash – this will give them a nice shine when baked.
15. Using the sharp knife confidently slash the top of each roll about 7 times.  This serves 2 purposes, the first is to let the meat cook evenly and the second is it makes it easy to neatly cut them when cooked.
16. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes.
17. Leave to cool before eating.  They can be eaten warm from the oven or will keep for lunch the following day if kept in a sealed dry box in the fridge.

Related Recipes: Mini Quiches. More Party Food ideas here

This recipe, and more, is available on Wholesome Ireland