Weekend Recipe: ‘Nduja Sausage Roll

’Nduja is an Italian meat purée that’s highly spiced with paprika. You can buy it from Italian delis or online, but if you can’t find it you can use 300g (10 ½ oz) of cooking chorizo, casing removed, blitzed in a food processor with 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika and 1 teaspoon of olive oil. In this recipe I’ve smeared the inside of the pastry with apple sauce to lift the flavours. It’s grateful for the sweetness, and I’ve garnished with chilli flakes and a clever blend of salt, fennel and elderflower that I stumbled across – alternatively, just use ordinary sea salt flakes. The salt really makes them look super-cool and you get a spot more flavour, but it’s not completely necessary. These are delicious as a hand pie but are also great with mash, onion gravy and greens as a proper dinner!

Makes 12 Large Sausage Rolls
Preparation Time: 30 Minutes
Cooking Time: 25 Minutes

450g (1lb) good-quality outdoorreared
pork sausagemeat, or about 8 sausages, squeezed out of their skins
250g (9oz) ’nduja
100g (3 ½ oz) Parmesan cheese, finely grated
a pinch of ground mace
plain flour, for dusting
1 x 320g (11 ½ oz) packet of readyrolled all-butter puff pastry
4 tablespoons apple sauce
1 large free-range egg, lightly beaten
sea salt flakes and freshly ground
black pepper

For the elderflower, fennel & chilli garnish (optional)
1 tablespoon elderflower and fennel
flavoured sea salt
½ tablespoon red chilli flakes

Place the sausagemeat in a mixing bowl along with the ’nduja, Parmesan, mace, salt and pepper, then really get your hands in there and squidge it all together.

Dust a work surface with flour, then lay out the pastry and roll it a little thinner, about 2mm (1/16 inch) thick. Cut the pastry into 3 across its width, then spread just over 1 tablespoon of apple sauce along each strip.

Divide the sausagemeat mix into 3 and form into 3 long sausages the same length as the pastry strips. Place on top of the apple sauce-covered pastry. Brush the edges of the pastry with the beaten egg, then fold it over the sausages so the meat is encased in pastry. Glaze the pastry with beaten egg, turn over and glaze the other side, then pop them into the fridge for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan (425°F), Gas Mark 7.

Mix the salt blend and the chilli flakes together. Place the sausage rolls on a board and cut one either into 4 or into lots of small, bite-sized rolls. Score the tops neatly with a sharp knife, if you want. Pop them on to a baking sheet, sprinkle with some of the garnishing salt and bake for 20 minutes for the small ones or 30 minutes for the larger ones.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Eat them warm.

Extracted from Gizzi’s Season’s Eatings. Available here.