Dan Lepard's Hot Crust Sausage Roll

When I started this blog, I created it solely for the purposes of communicating with my family. I kept it private, and I had it set to function as sort of a group email that would send out to family members when I posted. The idea of communicating with strangers -- strange bloggy internet-type people -- was really unsettling and odd to me. Someone I didn't know reading a blog about me? Not ok, in fact, downright scary. Don't get me wrong, I generally like people and I'm not some sort of misanthrope; however, I'm not the person who's going to sit next to you on the airplane and tell you my life story. I'm the person who's going to sit down and bury her head in a book and hope like crazy that you don't try to talk to me for the whole entire flight. I was pretty sure that nothing good could come from communicating with total strangers on the internet, but I was wrong. In fact, this these "strangers" on the internet are a wealth of information on all things food related. It's actually really cool to have a subset of friends who share your interest. When I think about it, most of my friends are friends because we share common experiences:  we grew up together, we went to college together, or we go to school together. I love my friends, but I think it is so cool through this thing called the internet, people with like minds can communicate. Now I know bloggers of all ages in different places who happen to be the best resource ever for all things food related. Case in point:  a year ago I had no idea who Dan Lepard was. Dan Lepard? Isn't that an 80's heavy metal band? Now, thanks to bloggers like Nancy, I know that Dan Lepard is an amazing British baker, and he writes a "How to Bake" column for The Guardian.

 

The Bread Baker's Apprentice generally keeps me in bread, and Tuesdays With Dorie keeps me in desserts, so I haven't had many chances to use Dan Lepard's recipes. I have quite a few bookmarked, and eventually I'll get to make them (I think I may be the very last person who has yet to bake the famous Milk Loaf). When I saw this recipe for Hot Crust Sausage Roll I was so excited. This was something I could make for dinner, and I'd finally have a chance to see what all of the Dan Lepard fuss was about. I think I bookmarked this recipe in October, but I finally got a chance to make the sausage rolls this week. Withour further ado, here is the recipe (read on for my changes and notes):

Hot Sausage Rolls

by Dan Lepard

250g plain flour, plus more for rolling
1 tsp chilli flakes
3 tsp paprika, not the hot one
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
225g ice-cold unsalted butter cut into 1cm cubes
175ml cold milk
500g sausages, any sort
1 medium onion, very finely chopped
1 handful chopped parsley
1 beaten egg
Mix the flour, chilli, paprika, salt, baking powder and butter in a bowl, then stir in the milk to make a lumpy dough. Using lots of flour, roll this to 30cm across, then fold it in by thirds, roll again, fold again and chill for 30 minutes. Repeat twice more at half-hourly intervals.
Strip the sausages of their casings, and mix the meat with the onion and parsley. Roll the dough to about 30cm by 45cm and cut into three 30cm by 15cm strips. Divide the meat into three, roll each piece into a stick about 30cm long, and lay one in the centre of each dough strip. Fold the dough around the meat, to enclose the filling, and seal with water.
Press each roll flattish, cut it into pieces and place seam-side down on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Brush with egg, slash the top and bake at 200C (180C fan-assisted) /400F/gas mark 6 for 40 minutes if they're large, less if they're small.

When a recipe calls for this much butter, I generally don't see much sense in trying to make it healthier but I still tried a bit.

• I used 50 g of white whole wheat flour. I was slightly concerned about making this substitution because the dough is very obviously a pastry-type dough, but the nice thing about cooking for one is that you don't have to worry as much about experimenting. I thought it might add some extra flavor to the dough. The substitution worked really well, it wasn't noticeable at all, and next time I think I'll push my luck again and try 100 g white whole wheat. 
• The dough is flavored with red pepper flakes and paprika. This is the first time I've ever thought about flavoring a pastry type of dough, but I love it! I'd love to try it with other herbs and spices -- maybe black pepper or thyme? It seems that the options are endless. 
• I used 1% milk because that's what I had and it worked out just fine. 
• You really will need a lot of flour as you're rolling this dough out. It starts out a sticky sort of globbish mess, but it ends up a lovely, lovely pastry dough. If you know how much I love rolling out dough, then you can probably guess that I had a blast with this recipe. There's quite a bit of rolling and chilling, but I loved watching the dough transform. 
  
• I had a hard time trying to understand just how to cut and form the dough. The three pieces of dough seemed really big, so I ended up making 6 squares with my pastry instead of the three rectangles that the recipe describes. 
• Because I was using the precooked chicken sausage, I sliced and precooked my onions as well. I really don't like the flavor of onion in anything unless it's a caramelized onion, so I preferred the extra step here. 
• The original recipe calls for uncooked sausage and uncooked, finely diced onion. Even with my precooked ingredients, I still had some "leakage" from my pockets. This was fine and it didn't hurt the final result, but it made me wonder about how much leakage would occur with the uncooked ingredients.
  
• That said, this moisture is essential to the finished product. I had to really, really restrain myself when I was putting these together because it was my instinct to add some cheese to these little pockets. I had to keep reminding myself how much butter is in the dough and that these would probably be unbearably rich with cheese added. When I looked at them precooked, they looked so dry and unappealing. When they cook, though, they steam and the result is a very moist, tender, flaky, savory little pocket of goodness. The moisture from the ingredients is essential, so I'd caution against overcooking the onions if you are inclined to precook them. 

So, the verdict on these little pockets? They're absolutely delicious. The crust is tender and flaky and soooo good! I think that this is such a versatile recipe, and I can't wait to try out different variations of flavors in this recipe. For anyone thinking ahead to the Super Bowl, I think that this has some potential for a Super Bowl snack. I also think that you can make the dough a couple of days ahead of time, wrap it in plastic, and use it when you're ready. Now that I've finally gotten to try a Dan Lepard recipe, I'm ready to try some more!