Pork, apple & mustard sausage rolls - an aide memoire!

I was so sure there was one, I just came to find the link for my pork, apple & mustard sausage rolls - and was absolutely astounded to find that I haven't blogged them!

Yes, I have several sausage roll recipes on the blog here but none of them are with my family's favourite pastry - a mix of flour, vegetable suet and butter.  This pastry is hugely calorific but so delicious with savoury recipes.  It's also not as much of a mouthful as puff pastry can be and not as claggy in the mouth as a light shortcrust can be, all of which is a very good thing.  Once baked, it also has a strength to it - particularly when judiciously coated in an egg yolk wash - which can be really useful when out on picnics or just plain old eating in the car.  Nobody wants a collapsible sausage roll in those circumstances.

As such, here now follows an aide memoire of this sausage roll recipe, including the correct quantities for the pastry - which will save me from having to work it all out for the umpteenth time!

PORK, APPLE & MUSTARD SAUSAGE ROLLS   (makes 6)

Ingredients :

For the pastry

225g plain flour
75g vegetable suet
75g salted butter
a pinch of sea salt
a good pinch of black pepper
60-80g of carbonated mineral water.

For the filling 

6 quality pork sausages, skins removed
half a Braeburn apple, peeled, cored and finely diced
6 tsp wholegrain mustard (or thereabouts)
an egg yolk, for glazing.

Method :

At least an hour before you require it, make your pastry.  Add the flour, suet, butter, sea salt & black pepper to a large bowl and rubbing between your fingers, rub the butter into the mix.  You should wind up with a mixture somewhere between cornflakes and breadcrumbs.

Stir in approximately half the water, adding a little more and a little more, until the mix is damp enough to come together when pressed.  Erring a little on the dry side is infinitely better than having it too wet, so add cautiously!

Lay out a large piece of cling wrap and dump the pastry into the middle.  By patting and pushing, make a rough log shape and close the cling film over it, tightening up either end to compress it.  Place the pastry into the fridge for a minimum of 30 mins before using.

When ready to make the sausage rolls, set your oven to pre-heat to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.  Take the pastry from the fridge and cut into two halves and set aside.

Skin the sausages, disposing of the skins, and set the sausage meat aside still in its sausage shape.

Peel and core the apple and chop one half into fine dice.  Eat the other half.  Well, someone has to!

Roll out one half of the pastry on a floured board, to make a rectangle long enough to take three sausages, laid end to end, and with enough pastry on either side so that you can roll them up and have the sides meet.

Spread half the mustard onto the middle of the pastry, creating a "bed" for the sausages to lay on.  Add half the apple pieces to the mustard and lay the sausages on top, pressing down lightly onto the apple.

Brush a little water onto the side of pastry that is furthest away from you.  Lay the dry side of the pastry over the sausage mix and continue to roll onto the dampened side.  You may need to trim any excess pastry, rather than have too thick a layer around the sausage mix.

With a sharp, wet, knife cut the roll into three (or smaller, if you want picnic versions).  Lay each sausage roll onto a baking tray, join side down, and repeat the whole process with the second half of pastry, remaining mustard, apple and last three sausages.

Brush each sausage roll liberally with the egg yolk and pierce the top with a fork or make a knife cut, to let the steam out as the sausage cooks.

Place into the oven for 35-40 minutes, after which you should place the sausage rolls onto a wire rack to cool.  Beat off all comers until ready to serve.

Printable version

Quick cheesy scrambled eggs

This is one of my "hit and run" style of blog posts, that covers something I've made for myself - either breakfast, or lunch - that was too good not to share.

This quick cheesy scrambled egg in a toasted pitta bread breakfast is one such.  I didn't have my "proper" camera to hand, so snapped a picture with my camera phone.  This is why it's not a great picture - but it's enough to give you the idea.

It's a simple enough concept - an egg, scrambled, with grated cheese melted in and put into a pitta bread.  However, it's not a stovetop job, it's a microwave job.

Super-easy, super-quick and you're left with a mug, a fork and a knife to wash up.  As you can see, I didn't even bother to dirty a plate.   Perfect.  

QUICK CHEESY SCRAMBLED EGGS   (serves 1)

Ingredients :

1 large or very large egg
a small handful of grated cheese (I used Red Leicester, but any hard cheese is good)
a small knob of butter
1 tsp cream, if you've got it (not essential)
small pinch of sea salt and black pepper
Plus :
whatever you're serving it with - pitta bread, toast, bacon, whatever you like.

Method :

Crack the egg into a robust and microwave safe coffee mug.

Add the seasoning and cream (if you're using cream) and whisk them together with your fork.

Add the butter and grated cheese and stir lightly.

Place into the microwave and give it 30 seconds on full power.  Remove and give the contents a good old whisk with your fork again.

Replace and give it 15 seconds on full power.  Remove and whisk again.  Now, depending upon the power of your microwave, your egg will either be ready, or you'll need to give it small increments (say 5-10 seconds) further cooking until it reaches the consistency you like.

I recommend you remove it from the microwave when the egg is still a little bit underdone, as it will continue to cook even once it's on the plate!

In the meantime, you can have toasted a pitta bread, or made some toast, or if you're going very a la carte, even made some bacon earlier.  Serve up the egg with an extra sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper if you like that - and dig in!

Printable version

Egg & Bacon Croissant breakfast

Does bacon ever get old on a breakfast menu?

No, of course it doesn't!  What a silly suggestion.  Even if you're watching your weight, bacon for breakfast is a good, relatively low calorie protein to utilise, believe it or not.

Until this morning, I really thought that the egg and bacon sandwich was the best weekday use of bacon for breakfast.  Now of course, the Full English Breakfast takes the overall title, but you can't eat one of those every day.  Not these days, at these prices and with a relatively sedentary lifestyle of office work, anyway.  No, the egg and bacon sandwich was it.

Or so I thought, right up until today.  We went grocery shopping early and I missed breakfast to achieve that.  So I bought myself a croissant to have with a cuppa once I got home.  Except, hubby bought some bacon to have in sandwiches once we got home.  Now as I am sure you understand, once offered bacon it is impossible to reject.  Can't be done.  It's the law.  But I wanted my croissant.  Hence, the egg and bacon croissant was born.  (Well, it might have been born elsewhere at another time, but not in my kitchen).

So listen up, one and all!  Forget your bacon & egg sandwiches, that's so yesterday.  Today, the bacon & egg croissant is the contemporary, hip and happenin' breakfast.  400 calories?  Aaah, just have a salad for lunch - it'll be worth it, I promise.  This was SO good. I thought that perhaps it would be nice - but hadn't reckoned on just HOW nice.

The recipe is simple - slice your croissant across lengthwise, grill two slices of smoked back bacon and fry an egg in olive oil.  Lay the bacon across the croissant, lovingly lay the egg on top, add sea salt and black pepper and enclose it with the other half of your croissant.  Take it somewhere quiet and enjoy your breakfast whilst holding the plate closely under your chin, to catch the golden, delicious drips.  Happy sighs will ensue.

Yummy breakfast idea - Baked tomatoes, egg & cheese

I don't have a million words to say about this one - well, it's breakfast so that means it needs to be a) quick and easy to put together and/or b) easy to cook - and it's both.

I wouldn't recommend trying to make this for the family on a weekday before school - but when you've got half a tin of plum tomatoes without a job to do, it's a definite.

For those of you who aren't following my Facebook page, you might not realise that I'm having a serious crack at whittling the waistline.  As such, I'm trying to keep my calories for the day to 2,100 - and it can be a challenge.  This breakfast rocked up at under 200 calories, so it's a goodie!

You need (for one person) :

half a tin of plum tomatoes, each tomato roughly chopped into three;
a dessertspoonful of tomato ketchup;
a whisker of tabasco;
a pinch of sea salt;
a good pinch or more of ground black pepper;
one fresh egg, and
a very small piece of mature cheddar cheese (just enough to grate over).

You can, if you have them, add anything you like to the tomatoes - such as chives, basil, parsley, chargrilled peppers - anything you like.

Hungry people can add another egg - but that will increase the calorie total by 80 or so.

What you need to do, is :

1.  Get yourself an ovenproof individual dish about twice the size of a ramekin.

2.  Mix the tomatoes with the ketchup and whatever other flavourings you are using, including the salt and pepper.  I mixed them directly in the dish.

3.  Crack the egg onto the top of the tomatoes.

4.  Grate the cheese - sparingly - over the top.

5.  Place into a pre-heated oven for 30 minutes or so until the top is lightly browned and the egg is firm.  I cooked mine in my combi oven (the Beastie) on the oven/grill/microwave setting which sped things up even more - but I appreciate that not everybody has a Beastie in which to do that.  You could always pop it under the grill if the cheese isn't golden enough for you by the end of the 30 mins.

Mmmmn.  The slightly spicy tomato mixed with egg and cheese is a time honoured match made in heaven that didn't need anything more.  What a great way to start the weekend.  Gets a great big thumbs up from me!



Printable version

Is it possible to microwave a poached egg?

Photo c/o www.joyfulabode.com

Currently, the answer to that is "yes, so long as you want a hard yolk to your egg!".

I conducted an interesting experiment this morning.  I hadn't been out of bed for long - in fact, I was only just out of bed in that I was sitting on the edge drinking some tea and wishing I was back in the warms again - and was pondering on what to do with the extra vegetables we seem to have accumulated in the fridge.


We've got a large pack of asparagus, some broccoli, half an aubergine, a vine ripened tomato and a number of Jersey Royal potatoes - and that's just for starters.  Looking at that list now, I can see a lovely griddled vegetable salad appearing before my eyes.  However, then, I wasn't thinking quite so clearly and couldn't get past the large pack of asparagus.

In my head were images of asparagus soldiers dipped into soft boiled eggs, asparagus in Hollandaise sauce, griddled asparagus dripping in butter - so you can probably understand why I was having trouble getting past it.

Hubby suggested steamed asparagus with Hollandaise and a poached egg - which has lots of merit as an idea.  Right up until you realise that it's virtually impossible to poach anything other than an egg that you caught on the way to the ground, having just left its chicken.  They need to be that fresh.  The poor sorry little eggs that we get from the supermarket just can't cut the mustard in poaching water.  At three to four days old (at best) they will be drifting around the pan in strings of white mucus that are not only unappetising, but that are also very difficult and unrewarding to eat.

It was then that the light dawned about how come egg poaching pans were invented.  To be able to poach week-old eggs, of course.  It's not that the populace - to a man (or woman) - suddenly forgot how to poach, it's that egg production became centralised to "egg producing farms" instead of having backyard hens or local farms producing eggs for sale at local shops.  As such, the distance in time between the egg being laid and appearing in the shop, was longer and the quality of the egg deteriorated to a stage where it became unable to be poached successfully.


This is why so many people believe they "aren't able to poach an egg".  Not because their technique is lacking, it's because the eggs just aren't up to it.

Lozzie-eggs

Whenever I am the happy recipient of some of my friend-Laura's eggs from her backyard hens, the first thing I do is have one poached for breakfast.  The poaching works beautifully, every time.

So, getting back to the poaching pan, hubby's suggestion was to make use of same.  (He was doing the man-thing of "wifey wants it - make it happen").  I wasn't keen on that idea, not because using a poaching pan was admitting defeat on the egg poaching front (well, there is no "admit defeat", if your eggs just aren't up to it).  No, it was because of the washing up involved.  Now, we don't have a dishwasher - at which point, hubby will laugh hollowly and exclaim "yes we do, me!".  Which is entirely the reason why I'm not keen in making a lot of washing up over something as simple as breakfast.  Lord knows, he has enough washing up to do where lunch and dinner are concerned, without starting on breakfast too.  Using the poaching pan involves washing up four component parts - and then only if you've cooked the one egg!


It was then that I had my blinding idea.  The poaching cups are plastic, right?  Most plastics, these days, microwave.  I wonder if, if you microwaved an egg in a plastic poaching cup, whether it would work?

Photo c/o DailyMuscle.com

So, having hurriedly thrown on some clothes (well, it's best to have breakfast looking like you've arrived on the planet, rather than been dumped here from some alien environment, I find), I took one of the poaching cups from our egg poaching pan and - plus an egg and a smear of olive oil - microwaved it.

It didn't half hop around the microwave - but the end result, after 35 seconds, was an egg which had a hard yolk but - in places - a partly uncooked white.

So not exactly a success. I'm wondering whether reducing the power on the microwave and cooking it for a bit longer might improve the result.

I reckon I'll try that tomorrow!


The asparagus?  Oh that's forgotten - I think I might make a tart with it some time next week.  *chuckle*


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Cooking eggs the Heston way - eventually!

Fair makes my mouth water ..

Because it's currently Farmhouse Breakfast Week, here's another treatise on the subject of breakfast.

Those of us who are based in the U.K. will know the t.v. programme to which the title of this blog post refers.  However, for those who aren't as familiar with our t.v. scheduling, it refers to Heston Blumenthal's latest t.v. series "How to cook like Heston" in which he shares some of his techniques.

The first programme was about eggs, the second was beef, then chocolate and this week's is all about chicken.

Now I have a long-standing passion for the humble egg.  Quite apart from the belief that you'll never go hungry all the time you've an egg in the house, I have to admit that it's tricky to keep an egg in this house because no sooner have they arrived than they are eaten - in one form or another.

We were watching Masterchef on t.v. last night and one of the contestants moved a tray of eggs from point A to point B - and I thought "phwooaaar!", much in the same way as you would if you'd spotted a juicy steak, or a delicious oozy pudding.  So, you can see, an appreciation of the many forms of egg is fairly fundamental to my being.

I was recently lucky enough to receive a copy of Michel Roux's cook book, "Eggs", as one of the runners up in a competition held by the lovely Clarence Court eggs.  In this book, he details just about every method of cooking eggs known to man - including the good old boiled egg.  His method was well known and is how, ordinarily, I would cook a boiled egg.

In cold water, ready to go!

Heston's method, however, is somewhat different.  He recommends that you place the eggs in the smallest pan available and only add enough cold water to cover them.

Boiling!  Quick .....

Then put the lid on the pan and place over the highest heat possible.  When the water comes to the boil, remove the pan from the heat and wait for 6 minutes.

..... remove it from the heat and now, wait.

After the time has elapsed, remove the lid and carefully remove each egg.

By all accounts, this method of cooking an egg will result in a less rubbery, more tender egg white - and a beautifully soft yolk - owing to the gentleness with which it has been cooked.

Ever the optimist and ever keen to improve my own techniques, this just had to be tested.

~cries~  No soft anything, here!

All I can say, is that Heston's cooker must be a darned sight better at getting the water to boil than ever mine is, because my first attempt was solidly hard boiled.  Nonetheless it was edible, however I couldn't detect any difference in the egg white.

Forlornly waiting for the perfect egg ...

Never one to give up after a first attempt, my second egg I left for just 5 minutes, instead of the recommended 6.


Aha!  This produced a fairly soft yolk - one which wouldn't have been out of place inside a Scotch Egg, but not really dipping material.  The jury is out as regards the texture of the egg white, as we couldn't really tell any difference.


The third and final attempt was left for 4½ minutes, which produced the perfect dippable yolk inside soft egg white.  I have got to admit, however, that I am still not seeing the promised difference in texture where the white is concerned.  If there is one, it has to be so minimal that as an egg lover - and as such, I really don't mind how my eggs arrive - it is "beyond my ken", as they say in Scotland.

That's the one!  Perfect!

Having conquered the Heston boiled egg, I then turned my attention to the interesting method he employed for cooking scrambled eggs.


Before I get into that, however, I must tell you about the yawning chasm of divide between scrambled egg methods that occurs in our house.  Hubby is wedded to the Escoffier method - that of lots of butter, in a pan, low heat, lots of stirring.  I, however, have evolved into scrambling my eggs in the microwave.  ~cue mass sharp intake of breath~  I know, I know, it's not the best way of doing it - but I have a well developed method that I have passed on to son & heir that is not only fairly safe (no hot cooker tops on which to burn himself or set fire to the daily newspaper) but can (I admit, the results are slightly random) result in lovely creamy eggs.  Or what I used to THINK were lovely creamy eggs - right up until I sampled scrambled eggs the Heston way.


Now I can't imagine cooking my scrambled eggs this way every day - because it takes patience and patience is at a bit of a premium, most mornings (hence the microwave method!).  However, on a morning when I'm craving a bit of indulgence, or have someone who needs a little "pampering on toast" for breakfast - this is definitely going to be right up there.


Heston (as one would expect) totally pushes the boat out on the indulgence side of things, using butter, whole milk and double cream - then finishing off with brown butter and sherry vinegar.


I however, whilst erring on the side of weight-gain caution, just went for the butter.

Nearly! Nearly there!

Heston's method involves placing a bowl above a saucepan of simmering water, then melting the butter and adding the lightly beaten eggs.


As with the boiled egg method, this method is all about being gentle and not scaring the egg into tightening up and becoming tough, but warming it through gently and cajoling it into forming a scramble.  So don't - for a second - think this is going to be done swiftly.  I would recommend you grab a chair.


Make sure you have your toast ready for the moment when the egg finally submits to the heat and, with an almost audible sigh, scrambles.  You don't want to have to leave it congealing in its bowl, while you rush around toasting bread.

Happy sigh - now THAT's what I'm talking about!

The end result - placed on top of some delicious home-made, toasted soda bread - is so deliciously creamy that it truly is the definition of Greg Wallace's favourite word, "unctuous".  Far better than the dictionary definition, that of "having an oily or soapy feel".  To my mind, the milk and cream just aren't necessary as the egg itself forms so beautifully smoothly that the creaminess is all there.  Mind you, as I say, I didn't try the eggs with the cream - maybe it'd pass from sublime to "totally off the scale".  Hmmmn, maybe I'll give it a go, the next time I've some cream sitting looking for a home to go to!


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