, Step by step
Cranberry and orange sausage rolls
A festive twist on a favorite party treat!
Method
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Step 1
Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
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Step 2
Place a large saucepan over a medium heat and add a little cooking oil. Add the shallots, garlic, cranberries, stir then cover with a lid and allow to soften gently for around 5 minutes. When ready, take off the heat and leave to cool.
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Step 3
Place the sausagemeat and chopped parsley into a bowl and add the cooled shallot and cranberry mixture. Add the orange zest, season with salt and pepper and mix together thoroughly – by hand is best!
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Step 4
Roll out the puff pastry to form a long oblong about 15cm wide and 30cm long. Place the sausagemeat mix onto the long front edge of the pastry, forming it into a long sausage shape.
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Step 5
Beat your egg and add the splash of milk to make an egg wash. Brush this over the remaining exposed pastry, keeping at least half back for the next stage.
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Step 6
Gently lift the front edge of the pastry and roll it away from you, wrapping the sausage meat in the pastry and forming a long roll. Brush the roll with the remaining egg wash.
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Step 7
With a sharp knife, cut the roll into individual pieces the size that you require, place on a baking tray and place in the oven. Leave until the pastry is golden brown, then remove and place on a wire rack to cool.
Nutrition
No Christmas feast is complete without sausage rolls, especially if they are home-made. Mark’s December recipe with added cranberries, shallots and orange zest is a delicious twist on the traditional sausage roll.
Oranges have long played a role at Christmas – probably because they were one of the few fruits available in the winter in Northern Europe. In days gone by, when fruit was a luxury, an orange in the stocking on Christmas morning would have been greeted with as much joy by a child as a new toy – very hard to believe today!
The cranberry is a native North American plant. Cranberries are traditionally served with the Thanksgiving Day turkey in the USA, apparently introduced on the first Thanksgiving celebration because of their important health giving properties – among other things they are a good source of vitamin C.
Cranberry sauce may not have featured in Victorian Christmas feasts but is now usually served with our Christmas turkey. A small type of cranberry grows in Northern Europe and was used in Scandinavian liquors and cranberries do get a mention from Mrs Beeton as a pudding ingredient.
DR JULIET GRAY, COMPANY NUTRITIONIST
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