recipe

Little Ash’s “Dangerous” Beef Sausage Rolls

I quite often you hear recipes described as “scrumptious” or “moreish” and these terms are thrown around by people with poor impulse control.

I describe this recipe as “Dangerous.”  Dangerously addictive.   And I don’t use this term lightly.  I’m surprised there isn’t a “Drug & Alcohol” article released on the dangers of these Sausage rolls

Before COVID in the office morning tea, the original owner of the recipe would bring a batch of sausage rolls in and they will be the first plate of food eaten. 

I cooked a batch for a 4 yo birthday party and people were fighting over to get the last one. 

My kid’s friends devoured a whole container of sausage rolls after school, leaving none for tea that night.

When the original recipe owner gave me the recipe; surprisingly there is nothing remarkable about the ingredients.  No rare or exotic ingredients need to be sourced from far distant lands.  No illicit drugs folded in.  No magic or rituals to add to the quality.

Anyway – without further ado; here is the recipe of “Little Ash’s ‘Dangerous’ sausage rolls.”

The Recipe

Ingredients

  • 500g Sausage mince
  • 500g Beef mince
  • 1 onion (diced fine)
  • 2 carrots (finely grated)
  • 2/3 cup bread crumbs
  • 2tbs Tomato sauce
  • 2tbs Nice BBQ sauce
  • 1tsp Garlic powder
  • Sprinkle of mixed herbs
  • Pepper to taste
  • 6 sheets of puff pastry (20cm x 20cm)
  • Beaten egg + 1tbs of milk for glazing

Method

  1. Dice the onion up as finely as possible
  2. Grate the carrots in the small holes in the grater

  3. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl; ensuring they are all evenly distributed. I use clean hands to do this.
  4. Cover with gladwrap and allow mixture to rest for an hour in the fridge. I actually leave the mixture overnight for the flavours to develop further.

  5. Preheat a fan forced oven to 200c
  6. Lay out six sheets of Puff pastry to allow to thaw so it can be worked with

  7. Cut each piece of pasty in half.
  8. Lay a line of mince along the long edge of the pastry. Roll the pastry over to form the sausage roll and place the finished sausage rolls on a greased (or baking paper lined) tray

  9. Score the sausage rolls in the size you like and glaze with a beaten egg and milk

  10. Cook for 20 min and until the Sausage rolls are golden brown to your liking.

Notes

  • There is no salt added to this recipe. I think there is enough salt with the sauces and the pastry.
August 7, 2024 by Cook 0

Mum’s famous (and not so secret) bread rolls

Throughout my childhood; Mum made her own bread rolls.

To us; they were just everyday, even mundane bread rolls.  They fed the family of five when money was tight.

To us they were nothing special; but to my surprise everyone outside of our family absolutely loved them.  My cousins could destroy a batch of bread rolls while they were still cooling on the rack before anyone else had a chance.  Still to this day it is a core memory for my cousin – Aunty Kerrie’s bread rolls.

I didn’t appreciate them until I was older and started cooking them myself.  Bread rolls are my party trick when having guests around for dinner and the guests are more than happy taking the remaining rolls home; if there are any.

But I am here to dismiss the mysticism of “Mum’s bread rolls”.  They are great; but there is no unobtainable magic in them, no exotic ingredients that need to be sourced from far away lands and no secret recipe that is passed down only to the oldest of the family. 

The recipe actually came that came from the instruction manual of the first bread machine that we purchased all those years ago.

But with a few simple technique improvements; these bread rolls can be taken up a notch from the default bread machine recipe.

So finally for all those people wondering “How”; this is how you make “Mum’s bread rolls.” Try giving them a go yourself.

Mechanical Assistance

For this recipe I use a bread machine. It is a device that my family has used for many years. I think Mum has burnt out three bread machines in her life; running them almost every day when we all lived at home.

I have used a bench mixer with a dough hook when making a double batch of bread rolls with success. The bench mixer can be noisy compared to the bread machine; especially if you have to kneed the dough for 30min. I also hand kneeded the dough while we were away on holidays. It is harder to develop the gluten than the bread machine or a bench mixer; but can be done.

The Recipe

Ingredients

  • 330ml of warm water
  • 2tsp of dried yeast
  • 1tbs of white sugar
  • 1cp wholemeal flour
  • 2 1/2 cp strong baker’s flour
  • 1tsp of Bread improver or 1/4 tsp of ascorbic acid
  • 1tbs of olive oil (or a neutral cooking oil)
  • 1tsp salt

Method

  1. Dissolve the sugar in warm water. Mix in the yeast. Leave for 10min in a warm spot to allow the yeast to activate


  2. Add all the ingredients in the bread machine and start it on the “dough” setting. Watch for the first 10 minutes to ensure the ingredients combine correctly. You are looking for a smooth dough that only just slightly catches to the side of the bread machine. If it is too sticky; add extra baker’s flour teaspoon by teaspoon. If the dough is too dry and not forming together; add water teaspoon by teaspoon. Allow time for the water to get mixed in because it is very easy to overdo it.



  3. Allow the dough to kneed for 30minutes.
  4. After kneeding; allow the dough to rise for an hour in a warm spot.


  5. Punch the dough down and turn the dough out on a floured surface. Kneed for a few minutes to release any large air pockets and shape the dough in a rough log shape


  6. Divide the dough up into individual rolls. Typically I divide the dough up into 12 bread rolls. 16 is good if you are feeding kids and 8 is good if you are making rolls as the feature part of a meal (e.g. a schnitzel sandwich)


  7. To shape the rolls (I’ll do my best to describe the method). Find a un-floured spot on the bench. You need the dough to ever so slightly stick to the bench top. Ppress down on the clump of dough with the palm of your hand. Make circular motions with your hand to move the dough around and slowly raise it while bringing in your fingers. This will shape the dough into a bread roll.
  8. Add the bread rolls to a lightly oiled heavy baking tray.


  9. Place the bread rolls in a warm spot and allow them to rise for about 40 minutes; or double in size. Rising time will depend on your ambient temperature; in the colder months I have to position a tray over a heater vent to encourage the bread to rise
  10. Ten minutes before the bread rolls have completed rising; preheat a oven to 180c. Carefully place a heatproof pan at the bottom of the oven half filled with boiling. This will create steam for the bread rolls to improve the crust on them.


  11. Position the bread rolls in the middle of the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Rotate the tray and cook for another 3 minutes; or until the bread rolls achieve the crust that you want.


  12. Turn onto a wire rack and cool.


  13. Try and keep cousins, children, wife, friends etc from sneaking bread rolls until they are cool enough to eat.
July 12, 2024 by Cook 0

Jazzing up a Women’s Weekly slow cooker recipe

Since we have a “No Junk Mail” sticker on our mailbox – we’re deprived of the weekly “Aldi Specials” catalogue.

On the downside – we miss all the Aldi deals of items we didn’t think we would ever need.

On the plus side; when we do venture into Aldi – there is always a nice surprise to find what ludicrous bargains await us.

Recently there was a “Women’s Weekly Complete Slow Cooker Recipe” that I impulse bought for the tempting price of $20.

The recipes are inspirational; but not really refined.  Most of them follow the formula of; “Bung everything into a slow cooker & cook for eight hours.”

So as a challenge and a learning and teaching exercise; my wife picked out a recipe and keeping to the original ingredient list – I tried to bring out the best in the recipe.

Our base recipe #69: "Beef and Vegetable Soup"

Ingredients

  • 1kg Gravy beef – trimmed and cut into 2.5cm pieces
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 1 medium brown onion cut into 1cm pieces
  • 2 stalks of celery, trimmed, cut into 1cm pieces
  • 2 medium carrots, cut into 1cm pieces
  • 2 medium potatoes, cut into 1cm pieces
  • 400g canned diced tomatoes
  • 1L water
  • 2 cups of beef stock
  • 2 dried lay leaves
  • 1 cup of frozen peas
  • 1/3 cup coarsely chopped flat leave parsley 

Method

  1. Combine beef, garlic, onion, celery, carrot, potato, tomatoes, the water, stock and bay leaves in a 5-litre slow cooker.  Cook, covered on low, about 9 hours.
  2. Add peas to cooker, cook, covered, a further 30 minutes.
  3. Discard bay leaves.  Season to taste.
  4. Serve soup sprinkled with parsley.

Improving the recipe

There are three opportunities to add additional flavour to the recipe:

  1. Browning the meat
  2. Caramelising the onions
  3. Managing the cooking time of the other vegetables.

Browning the beef

This is the most obvious improvement; browning the meat before adding to the slow cooker.  Many slow cooker recipes call for the browning meat step; the Maillard reaction adds extra depth of flavour to the beef and the wider dish. 

So with care I browned the beef cubes in batches well in a fry pan over medium/medium-high heat.  Leave the burnt caramel bits in the bottom; we will use that for later.

Tackling the Onions

The onions are another chance to enrich the flavour of the soup.  Taking a cue from “French onion” soup; the idea is to slowly cook the onions to a rich caramel onion flavour.

Slice the onions thinly and then slowly brown them in the pan on a low heat.

Stir around to lift off any brown bits from the bottom to start forming a beef fond with the sweating of the onions and keep slowly cooking until it is a deep rich brown colour.

If the onions start to stick and threaten to burn; add a bit of water to loosen them off the bottom of the pan.

When the onions are almost done; add in the minced garlic and cook the raw edge off the garlic.

Add the caramel onion and garlic mixture to the slow cooker pot and then de-glaze the pan with a cup of beef stock.

Sacrificial stock vegetables

To preserve the texture of the carrots, celery and potatoes for the end and not cook the vegetables to a pulp; we’re going to use half of the carrots and celery as “sacrificial vegetables” to flavour the soup and then remove at the end; the same when making a stock.

You could when the cooking time is almost over; remove the cooked beef and blend the pulpy vegetables with a stick blender.

But this time I decided to give our worm farms a treat with cooked carrots and celery.

At the end – add freshly cubed potatoes, cook for 10min and then add cubed celery and carrots.

Cook until the vegetables are just cooked through – or until personal preference.

Add the peas right at the end to warm through.

In the end - is it worth it?

The soup was robust, tasty and put a smile on the family’s face.

But how much tastier than the base recipe – I couldn’t say.  I should have cooked the original recipe as a control; but couldn’t bring myself to throw beef into a slow cooker that hasn’t been browned.

One thing that was a standout was the time it took to prepare.  If preparing the original recipe; it could have been done within ten minutes. 

And that’s one of the key advantages of a slow cooker – throw ingredients quickly into a pot, let it run through the day and you have a tasty comforting meal in the evening time with little effort.

With my browning the meat in batches, the sweating and caramelising the onions; all of a sudden that 10min prep ballooned out to an hour. 

Is that extra 50min worth the extra taste; worth the time and effort invested?

I’ll leave it up to you dear readers to cook the recipe and find out yourself.

October 26, 2022 by Cook 0

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