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Ingredients  

For the pastry

  • 250 g butter
  • 450 g plain flour
  • 50 ml very cold water
  • a good pinch of salt

For the venison meat mix

  • 500 g minced venison
  • 25 g good olive oil
  • 5 g salt
  • plenty of ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and ground
  • a sprig of thyme and rosemary
  • a few sage leaves
  • 1 onion, very finely chopped
  • 1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped

To put it all together

  • 1 egg, beaten with a little water
  • 1 baking sheet & parchment
  • a little flour for dusting

Instructions

For the pastry

  • Place everything bar the water in a food processor and use the pulse function to begin to chop the butter into the flour – you do not want breadcrumbs in this instance, but quite obvious chunks of butter in the end dough – drizzle in half the water and pulse a couple more times, then the rest and pulse again – the mix should be starting to come together to a dough, if not add a little more water and pulse a couple more times – turn this mix out onto a lightly floured surface and work together into a ball using your hands.
  • Using a rolling pin roll the dough out to roughly 4 x its original size and fold the left edge into the middle, flip the right edge over the top and roll out again, fold again and then turn through 90 degrees, fold again and then cover, and set aside in the fridge for use later.

For the meat mix

  • Finely chop the rosemary, thyme and sage after stripping the rosemary and thyme from its stalks. Mix everything together with the herbs in a clean mixing bowl and season well.

To put it all together

  • Pre heat the oven to 190 degrees C.
    Roll the pastry out into a long thin oblong – not too thick– you want to have around the thickness of a 50p coin, a little thicker if you can manage it – these sausage rolls are to be short and plump.
  • Carefully using your hands arrange the meat down the middle of the pastry.
  • Egg wash down one side of the pastry visible under the meat, then flip the top of the pastry over and stick it down so the meat is trapped inside, use a fork to crimp along that edge.
  • Now, egg wash the top of the pastry and using a very sharp bread or pastry knife score through the pastry every 5mm or so.
  • You can now if you wish garnish the tops of your sausage roll with a few nigella seeds or fennel seeds or / and flaky salt – cumin works quite well too – or you can just leave them plain. Using your sharp pastry knife again cut the giant sausage roll you have made in half, then cut each half into as many pieces as you want – I think three works well so you end up with 6 good sausage rolls – place the cut rolls on the baking sheet and bake for about 20 – 25 mins until golden brown. Remove them from the oven and allow them at least 10 mins cooling time on a wire cooling rack before you give in and scoff one.