GAIL’s Recipe: The Perfect Sausage Roll

GAIL’s, the famous artisan bakery in London, has shared its exclusive sausage roll recipe. Follow the easy step-by-step guide and bake the delicious snack.

• Sausage rolls are perfect for picnics because they travel well and can be eaten at room temperature.
• It’s all about the quality of the minced pork used in the sausage meat. GAIL’s use Devon Rose free-range pork.
• We also heavily season our meat with a range of herbs and wholegrain mustard, and use sourdough breadcrumbs to bind.
• My favourite part is where the meat meets the pastry and the pastry is steamed by the meat and fills with divine meaty juices.

Recipe: GAIL’s Sausage Rolls

Flaky Fromage Frais Pastry

Making genuine, full-blown flaky pastry is a time-consuming business. Luckily for us (and you!), we’ve perfected a recipe that gives the same light, buttery, crumbly result and takes 10 minutes flat. It can be subbed for flaky or traditional shortcrust pastry in almost every situation.

Ingredients

Makes: 1 large tart, about 20cm x 30cm

• 250g plain flour
• 250g butter, chilled and diced
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 175g fromage frais
• Sour cream or full-fat Greek-style yoghurt

Method

1. Put the flour, cold butter and salt in a large mixing bowl. Using your fingertips or the beater if using a stand mixer, rub the butter into the flour until you have something that looks like coarse breadcrumbs, with a few larger specks of butter left here and there (these will add to the flaky texture).
2. Add the fromage frais all in one go and mix until combined. The dough will be sticky, but don’t overwork it or your pastry will be tough. Form into a rough ball, flatten out on cling film into a rectangle, wrap and chill for at least 2 hours, or overnight, then use as required.

Sausage Rolls

We think these are the best sausage rolls on the planet, and few who try them disagree. They’re a bit fatter than the ones you’re likely to be familiar with – we used to make ours thinner, but when you’ve gone to the trouble of making your own sausagemeat and it’s as delicious as this, why wouldn’t you want to pack more into each one?

For the Homemade Sausage Meat

Ingredients

• 300g minced pork
• 1 large slice of stale sourdough
• Bread, crusts removed
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• A very good grinding of black pepper
• 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 5 sprigs of thyme, leaves only
• Finely chopped
• 2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves only, finely chopped
• 5 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
• 1 egg, beaten

Method

Make the sausagemeat first. Break the bread into fine crumbs by hand
or in a food processor. In a large mixing bowl, add the breadcrumbs to the minced pork along with all the other ingredients and mix well by hand. Chill, covered, for at least an hour or overnight.

Making the Sausage Roll

Ingredients

Makes: 14 rolls

• 1 quantity flaky fromage frais pastry, well chilled (see recipe above)
• 2 x quantities of sausagemeat
• Egg wash
• 2 tsp sesame seeds
• 2 tsp nigella seeds GAIL’s ketchup, to serve
• Flour, for dusting

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6 and line a baking sheet with non-stick baking paper.
2. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to give a rectangle measuring 30cm x 40cm. Lay it in front of you so that the short sides are to your left and right. Cut it in half horizontally with a sharp knife, so that you have two 15cm x 40cm rectangles. (If at any point in the process the dough becomes too soft to handle, just put everything in the fridge for 20 minutes to firm up again.)
3. Cut the sausagemeat in half. Shape each into a log the length of the pastry rectangles. Place one along the centre of one of the rectangles. Brush the top edge of the rectangle with egg wash, then fold up the bottom edge to cover the sausage, but not so that it meets the top edge. Roll the rectangle away from you so that the pastry wraps around itself slightly, sealing up along the egg-washed edge. Repeat with the second rectangle and the second sausagemeat roll.
4. Cut each giant sausage roll into 7 equal pieces to give you 14 in total. Egg-wash their tops and sprinkle with a mixture of the seeds. Lay them on the baking sheet, well spaced out, and bake for 25–30 minutes, until the sausage is cooked right through and the pastry is dark golden and crisp. Serve as they should be – with ketchup.

gailsbread.co.uk