So what do you do when you've bought a pack of Turkish "Sac Yufka", or filo pastry, and find that you have enough pastry left over to pave the way from your kitchen to the moon and back?
Oddly enough, I also had best part of a pack of pork sausages left over from a miscalculation and hubby immediately said "sausage rolls!" when I pondered audibly as to what to do with them both. Seemed like a great idea.
Now, as luck would have it, I just happened to also have a small bowl of grated mature cheddar cheese that was also a leftover and just asking to be used in something.
Sausage, cheese, crispy pastry - yes, but it definitely needed something to lift the flavours. English mustard would be good, but our son isn't keen on English mustard. So, French mustard did the job - and, to be honest, I think it did it rather better than the English would have done.
So easy to make - just paint the pastry with oil or melted butter (I used a combination of groundnut oil and melted butter), spread on a tiny amount of mustard, sprinkle on some grated cheese, then lay on a skinned sausage and roll 'er up. Cut in half and ta-daa! Sausage rolls all ready to go in the oven (barring a quick swipe with the oily brush to encourage them to become golden).
At this stage they can be frozen, (provided the sausages haven't already been frozen). It is best to do so unbaked or be prepared to bake them again for 10-15 minutes to crisp up the pastry, if already cooked.
Truth be told, just about anything could go with the sausages in these sausage rolls - so feel free to go wild with funky combinations! Sausage and pickle, sausage and mushrooms, sausage & olives, sausage and chillis - I'm sure you can think of many more. I've since made some with wholegrain mustard and again with brown pickle (like Branston) and I can't decide which is the nicer as they were all so good!
The filo gives a deliciously light and crunchy texture to the soft, tasty sausage meat that would make them perfect for a finger buffet, or high tea, picnic or just as a snack. Don't wait until you've got leftover filo, sausages or cheese - these are too tasty to wait!
CHEESE & MUSTARD PORK SAUSAGE FILO ROLLS (makes 16 individual rolls)
Ingredients :
8 pork sausages, skinned
8 rectangles of filo pastry 3" x 6" (approx)
4 tbsp grated cheddar cheese
French mustard to taste
10g melted butter or groundnut oil.
Method :
Take a rectangle of pastry and brush with melted butter or oil.
Spread a small amount of French mustard across one third of the pastry.
Sprinkle grated cheese on top of the mustard.
Place a skinned sausage on top of the cheese and slightly stretch it to reach both sides, if necessary.
Begin to roll the sausage into its cheesy mustardy pastry from the sausage end, right to the end of the pastry.
Taking a very sharp knife, cut the sausage roll in half.
Place each half onto a baking sheet (I always line mine with baking parchment or greaseproof paper), making sure they are sitting upon the pastry join.
Place into a pre-heated oven at 180degC/340degF/Gas 4 for 15 minutes, then turn to achieve an even bake and replace for another 10 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the sausage is obviously cooked.
Serve immediately, or cool on a wire cooling rack.
Printable version
How do you elevate a midweek minced beef recipe? Why, add black garlic of course!
Black garlic is exactly that - it's garlic and it's very black, having been aged in balsamic vinegar. Balsajo is the black garlic I used today and we love it. The cloves are stickily dark like soft liquorice, but they don't taste of liquorice! If you're expecting it to taste of raw garlic, it doesn't do that either. It has a taste all of its own, being sweet but slightly tangy and incredibly delicious. I haven't yet eaten an entire clove like a sweetie, but the thought is there!
So today we were due to have just plain common or garden beef mince in gravy, which I always try to make as flavoursome as possible. Just because it's a midweek dish, doesn't mean it should be lacking in flavour or interest.
Having received the Balsajo as a competition prize a few days ago, I was keen to try it out in as many different incarnations as possible - so I backed off on a few ingredients that I would normally include in a midweek beef mince and added a nice whack of black garlic. The challenge to it was clear - see what you can do with this!
Because the black garlic has a quiet, sweet flavour, it's effect on the savouriness of the mince dish wasn't a big slap in the face sort of effect but very much one of infusing that mellow richness throughout the meat and gravy. Just gorgeous. Every so often you picked up a little chunk of black garlic on the fork, enabling a more intense flavour to come through.
I was astounded at the price for our Balsajo black garlic. Being so keen on it we were eager to replace our bulb once it was finished and so looked online to find out more. The Balsajo website has a handy "Where To Buy" section, from which we discovered that if we turned up at our local Sainsbury's with the princely sum of £1.50 (December 2015 price) clutched in our hot little hand, all would be well. Now how often does that happen? Not very often, not with "artisan" products that are unusual and slightly off the wall, I've found. Colour me seriously impressed.
So all that has made me very happy. After all, it's one thing being given an item to review (although, as I say, I won it in this instance), but quite something else if once you've decided you love it and cannot be without it, to find out that you need to re-mortgage the house in order to do so. As long as Balsajo keep making this delicious product, I'll keep on buying it and I recommend that you do, too.
MINCED BEEF WITH BLACK GARLIC (serves 3-4)
Ingredients :
1 tbsp olive oil
500g reduced fat minced beef
smoked sea salt (normal is fine)
ground black pepper
1 onion, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
1 bay leaf
2 tomatoes, chopped
4 cloves black garlic, sliced
quarter of a tsp ground cinnamon
half a tsp dried rosemary
1 Knorr Rich Beef stock pot
1 tsp Bovril
1 heaped tsp French mustard
2 tbsp Bisto Best beef gravy granules.
To serve : mashed potato and seasonal vegetables (I used carrot, broccoli, runner beans and peas)
Method :
Heat the olive oil until really quite hot in a large, deep frying pan. Add the beef and break up the block into small pieces as it cooks. Add a small pinch of smoked sea salt and a good helping of black pepper. Fry until the beef has all browned, the moisture has evaporated and there is just oil left under the beef. Leave the beef to caramelise for at least two turns, then remove it with a slotted spoon into a bowl.
Remove all but 1 tbsp of the fat from the pan and reserve in case you need more as you cook the vegetables.
Add the onion, garlic and bay leaf and fry until the onion is transparent and soft. Do not let the garlic burn.
Add the tomatoes and black garlic and stir to combine. Fry until the tomatoes are starting to break down.
Add the cinnamon and rosemary and stir to combine.
Add the stock pot and sufficient water to just under the level of the mince.
Add the Bovril and mustard and stir to combine. Bring to a lively simmer, then cover the pan and leave to cook for some 10-15 minutes.
Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary - the dish can cope with lots of black pepper but remember that the gravy granules are high in salt!
Pull the mince to one side of the pan and remove from the heat. Sprinkle in the gravy granules and stir immediately. Return the pan back to the heat and stir gently. Once the gravy has thickened, you are ready to serve.
Serve with mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables.
Printable version
So easy to make - just paint the pastry with oil or melted butter (I used a combination of groundnut oil and melted butter), spread on a tiny amount of mustard, sprinkle on some grated cheese, then lay on a skinned sausage and roll 'er up. Cut in half and ta-daa! Sausage rolls all ready to go in the oven (barring a quick swipe with the oily brush to encourage them to become golden). 
