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Sausage or Meat Rolls
INGREDIENTS for 12 rolls.-1 lb. of puff-paste, sausage-meat, the yolk of 1 egg. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 6d.
Make 1 lb. of puff-paste; roll it out to the thickness of about 1/2 inch, or rather less, and divide it into 8, 10 or 12 squares, according to the size the rolls are intended to be. Place some sausage-meat on onehalf of each square, wet the edges of the press the edges together, and trim them neatly with a knife. Brush the rolls over with the yolk of an egg, and bake them in a well-heated oven for about 1/2 hour, or longer should they be very large. The remains of cold chicken and ham, minced and seasoned, as also cold veal or beef, make very good rolls.
TIME.- hour, or longer if the rolls are large.
September to March or April.
SEASONABLE, with sausage-meat, fro n
A straightforward puff-paste turnover filled with raw sausage-meat. The whole success of it rests on the pastry being hot enough, fast enough, to crisp before the filling weeps fat into it.
- Oven heatA "well-heated oven" for puff paste is usually read as somewhere around 425-450F. Start hot for the first 15 minutes to lift the layers, then drop to about 375F for the remainder so the sausage cooks through without the pastry darkening.
- Cook the filling throughRaw pork sausage-meat needs to reach 160F at the centre. Half an hour at the heat given is usually enough for a roll of moderate size, but check with a probe rather than trusting the clock -- a thick roll can look perfectly browned and still be pink inside.
- Quantity of sausage-meatNone is specified. For 1 lb of paste cut into 12, allow roughly 1 lb of sausage-meat, about 1 1/3 oz per roll; more than that and the squares will not close.
- Puff-pasteA pound of bought all-butter puff pastry stands in exactly. Roll to a scant 1/2 inch as directed -- thinner and the base goes soggy under the fat rendering out of the meat.
- SealingDamp the edges of each square with water, fold the pastry over the meat, press firmly and trim. A sealed edge that has been crimped with a fork holds better than one merely pressed, and cutting a small vent in the top lets steam escape.
- Egg washOne yolk is plenty for a dozen rolls if slackened with a teaspoon of water or cream; neat yolk sets too thickly and scorches.
- The cold-meat variantsMinced cold chicken and ham, veal or beef are already cooked, so those rolls need only long enough to colour the pastry, about 20 minutes. Bind the mince with a little gravy or thick sauce or it will bake dry.
- Yield and servingTwelve small rolls, eight larger ones. Good hot from the oven, and they keep their appeal cold.
Meat baked inside pastry is one of the oldest forms of portable food in Britain, and the sausage roll as we know it -- sausage-meat in puff paste rather than a raised hot-water crust -- belongs to the nineteenth century, when commercially forced sausage-meat became cheap and widely available from the butcher. Beeton's note that the dish is seasonable "with sausage-meat, from September to March or April" reflects the pre-refrigeration pig year: pigs were killed in the cold months, and fresh pork was distrusted in summer. The suggestion of cold chicken and ham, veal or beef is characteristic of the book's economy, where, on the evidence of the recipe's own note, a use is often found for yesterday's joint.