The Get-Ahead Christmas Cook by Jane Lovett (Headline Home, £28)
Photo credit: Tony Briscoe
You Have to Make Jane Lovett's Sausage Roll Wreath This Christmas
Get ahead on your Christmas cooking with this fabulous new recipe from Jane Lovett
Her new book The Get-Ahead Christmas Cook is the perfect companion to tackle any festive feast.
Makes
18–20 pull apart rolls
Ingredients
- 500g best-quality sausagemeat (not too fatty)
- 1 tsp fennel seeds, ground
- 1/2 tsp ground mace generous grating of nutmeg
- 1 x 320g chilled ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry sheet (straight from the fridge)
- plain flour, for dusting
- 1 egg, lightly beaten with a pinch of salt, for the egg wash
- Dijon mustard, for spreading
- Topping suggestions
- (a sprinkling of) nigella/onion seeds
- pink peppercorns (roughly crushed in your palm)
- dried chilli flakes
- sea salt flakes
- For the sriracha mayo
- 6 tbsp good thick mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp sriracha sauce, or to taste
Method
GET AHEAD
Complete to end of step five up to three days in advance (but omit salt flakes until just before baking), cover and chill; bake as follows. Or freeze for up to two months; cook from frozen (oven temp as above) for five to 10 minutes longer.
Make the sriracha mayo up to three days ahead, cover and chill. Serve at room temp.
Far easier and quicker than it looks, this festive pull-apart wreath always goes down a storm, as sausage rolls do! With a salad, it makes a lovely lunch or supper, too.
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas six. Line a baking sheet, at least 32cm wide, with baking parchment or silicone paper.
Mix the sausagemeat and ground spices together and set aside.
Unwrap the pastry (keep the paper for future use) and roll it out further on a lightly floured worktop to a 45 x 30cm rectangle. With the rectangle in a landscape position, brush a two-and-a-half-centimetre margin of egg wash along the top of the long edge (furthest from you), then thinly spread the remainder of the pastry with Dijon mustard.
Form the sausagemeat into a long, even roll the length of the pastry and place it along the pastry, a third of the way up from the bottom – this is easiest done by rolling it into sections, then joining them up on the pastry. Fold and wrap the unglazed (bottom) section of pastry over the sausagemeat, then continue to roll up to (and over) the glazed edge, leaving the seam underneath.
Shape to form into an even-sized sausage roll, if necessary. Trim the floppy ends, transfer to the baking sheet, seam-side down, and curl into a wreath shape – it will be about 22cm wide; glue the ends together with some egg wash.
Cut down into sausage rolls three centimetres apart (without slicing right through the pastry in the centre of the wreath), then from the centre of the wreath push the rolls out; the wreath will become bigger, around 27–28cm. Working clockwise, twist each roll until the sausagemeat is showing, being careful to keep the wreath intact without tearing; the sausage rolls will separate further. Brush the pastry with egg wash and scatter with any/all of the topping suggestions – I go for them all!
Bake for 30–35 minutes until crisp and golden and the pastry is cooked through (cover loosely with foil if browning too fast after 15 minutes). Meanwhile, make the sriracha mayo by combining the mayonnaise and sriracha sauce in a small serving bowl, then set aside.
Transfer the wreath, on or off its paper, to a round platter and serve with the bowl of sriracha mayo in the middle. The wreath will happily keep warm for 30 minutes or more.
