Pork and Fennel sausage rolls

 What can I bring you for your birthday, my dear, I asked my daughter.  And she says to me, can you please make some sausage rolls as I am planning to have a brunch at home with cup cakes and a few other things. So I was on the hunt for yet another sausage roll recipe. Recipe Tin Eats never disappoints - so I used her recipe as her base and added a couple of my own ingredients and changed around the ingredients and the quantities a bit.  Sausage rolls are forgiving - and if you get the basics right and a good quality puff pastry, you cant really go wrong. 

Pork and fennel are a good combination and so I used a lot of fennel and also chilli to give it a kick. I have feeling I will be making this again!

Ingredients:

750 grams of mince pork, (full fat)

200 grams of streaky backon with fat, finely chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 a fennel bulb, finely chopped

2 stalks of celery, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon oil

2 teaspoon fennel seeds, toasted and powdered

1 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground

2 eggs 

1/2 teaspoon of chilli flakes, powdered

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 sheets of puff pastry, thawed

A tablespoon of sesame seeds

Method:

Heat oil and add onions, celery, fennel and garlic and saute for a few minutes.  The onion doesn't need to caramalise. Next add the bacon and cook for a few more minutes. The bacon just needs to cook through, doesn't need to get crispy. Let this mixture cool.

Beat the remaining egg and keep it aside. We will be using it for sealing the pastry and also as an egg wash.

In a flat platter, add the panko breadcrumbs, fennel powder, chilli powder, salt, pepper and 1 egg along with the pork mince. Add the cooled vegetables in and using your fingers mix well.

Cut one sheet of puff pastry into two rectangular bits.  Add the mince mixture inside and roll the pastry.  Seal the edges with the egg wash. 

Line a baking tray and spray with a little oil. Place the sealed part of the pastry facing the bottom on a baking tray.

Give the top of the pastry a brush with the egg wash and sprinkle sesame seeds.  Mark where you want to cut the sausage rolls.  I made the rolls 2 inches long.  Continue with the rest of the pastry and the pork mince until you completely use up the mince.

Place in the fridge for a couple of hours. At this stage you can even cover it and leave it in the fridge for when you are ready to bake it.

Heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Take the sausage rolls out of the fridge and cut them to size using your marks as the guide.  Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until the top is crisp and golden.

Serve hot with tomato sauce.