Sausage rolls

There’s nothing better than a good sausage roll at Christmas, I think even our French friends who have tried them have been pleasantly surprised. This year though Brian wanted to try for an even better sausage roll, and that meant some testing needed to be done.

We first mixed up two tiny batches each. Brian wanted his to be less firm, so he did one with a lot of breadcrumbs, and one with less breadcrumbs and Ras el hanout, to give it a zing. I thought I’d try out some chopped mushrooms, instead of breadcrumbs, and did mushroom and thyme and apple and herbs.

Then we made them up and popped them in the oven, with a little milk to seal and colour them.

25 minutes later we were ready for our tasting test. Brian had drawn a little plan of which one was which, so we carefully moved them to a wooden board in the same positions and then cut each in two.

What a fascinating little test it was. The breadcrumbs looked a bit funny in the meat, quite spotty, and they had removed all the moisture, making the roll quite dry, so the first one was out. The second one was much more interesting, although there were still a few breadcrumbs that had a similar effect to the first one, the Ras el hanout was a revelation. Next was my mushroom and thyme. These were deliciously moist, and had the softening effect that Brian was after. The thyme though was a bit too much. Lastly my apple and herbs. The less said about that one the better, it won’t be getting made again!

So the outcome was a resounding yes to mushrooms, with their softness and moisture, but they didn’t add much flavour, so we both agreed that mushrooms with a pinch of Ras el hanout was the way forward. They’ll definitely be gracing a few apéro’s this year.