Tuesday 24 July 2012

Veggie sausage rolls with caramelised onion


I do love a nice picnic, and it looks the weather for them has finally arrived- huzzah! Sausage rolls are a stalwart of al fresco dining, but despite being a non-meat eater I don't like to miss out on anything savoury covered in pastry. So I made these fake sausage rolls with Quorn sausages, lots of red onion, and a good quality ready-made all butter puff pastry. As I've said before, pretty much all meat 'substitutes' like Quorn, soya chunks or textured vegetable protein, don't really taste of much but do add a vaguely meat-like texture to food. So you basically need to ensure that whatever else goes in with meat substitute has enough flavour to carry the entire dish. So for my fake sausage rolls, I added generous amounts of slow cooked caramelised red onion to each one.

Recipe (enough for 12 small sausage rolls):

240g Quorn sausages (I used these new ones they've brought out which come in packs of 4, and they do seem a tad more flavourful than the regular ones)
Around 200g of a good quality ready-rolled all butter puff pastry (I used Tesco finest, but of course you can make your own if you're so inclined)
2 medium red onions (finely sliced)
2 or 3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 clove of garlic (finely sliced)
A little salt and pepper to season
A couple of table spoons of olive oil
A little flour to stop the pastry sticking to your board
A little milk to seal and glaze the pastry

Fry the sliced red onions with the thyme over a very gentle heat in a little oil, until they are completely soft and unctuous. This will take at least 20minutes. Add a bit of salt and pepper and the garlic, take out the thyme twigs, and cook slowly for another 5minutes or so. When they are done, take the pan off the heat and allow the onions to cool down a bit. In the meantime, cut each sausage into three pieces. I fried these a bit before I used them but in retrospect that was completely unnecessary, so I won't bother again. When the onions have stopped being piping hot, lay out the pastry on a lightly floured board, place a piece of sausage on it, and add a generous amount of the onion. Make sure you have enough pastry to go round the filling, then cut it, wrap the pastry round and use a bit of milk to glue the two ends together. You can either make each sausage roll individually, or wrap an entire row and trim them afterwards. When you've wrapped all the rolls, put them join-side down on a lightly oiled baking tray and glaze the top of the pastry with milk.
Bake for around 15-20minutes at gas mark 6, or until the sausage rolls are a golden brown. These were great warm straight out of the oven, with a bit of salad and some devilled eggs for an indoor veggie picnic (aka lunch). But now that summer is here I will definitely be making them again (ideally before it starts raining).

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