Beef & Bacon Sausage Rolls

Here is the first of a few recipes to celebrate all things BACON!

Bacon: Here I used Hertel’s Ayrshire bacon which comes from Vancouver island and is pretty good value for money at around $8-$9/lb. It’s found at local grocery stores like Thrifty Foods, Country Grocer and at the Village Butcher. It’s a great quality brand of bacon with a neutral savoury flavour.

Makes about 60-80 sausage rolls

Ingredients

850g extra lean ground beef

260g (or about 5-6 rashers) Ayrshire bacon – This cut of bacon includes a meaty piece of pork loin as well as a streaky fatty piece.

1 yellow onion finely diced

1 egg + 2 eggs for egg wash

1/3 cup ketchup

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

6 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 tbsp dried basil

1 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp all spice

2 tbsp corn starch

1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley leaves finely chopped

Pepper

Salt to taste

2 packages puff pastry (397g each)

Method

Preheat your oven to 210°C (410ºF)

Heat a stovetop grill or frying pan on medium heat and cook the bacon until just starting to brown. You want to bacon to be tender not crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan and on to a chopping board. Dice the bacon (fine or roughly chopped it’s up to you). In a separate bowl combine just one egg, the diced bacon pieces, and all the remaining ingredients except the puff pastry of course. When adding salt just take into account that the bacon is already quite salty. Get your hands in there and blend the ingredients well.

On a clean and floured surface roll out the puff pastry working with half a package at a time. Roll half the package into a rectangle about 13″ x 8″. Then cut that rectangle into two pieces of 13″ x 4″ each.

In a small bowl make an egg wash using the remaining 2 eggs and a splash of water. Wisk with a fork until combined. Using a brush, brush each rolled out piece of puff pastry lightly with egg wash.

Then place a cylinder of meat mixture along the middle of the puff pastry lengthwise. The cylinder should be about 3/4″ in diameter. Then wrap the meat with the pastry with the fold side down. Brush the top of the roll lightly with egg wash and cut the roll into 1″ – 1.5″ pieces. Set aside.

Continue with the remaining puff pastry and meat mixture.

The cut sausage rolls can be frozen at this point or you can continue on to baking them. Freeze them first on a baking sheet so they don’t stick together and once frozen they can be placed in a bag or container.

Place the sausage rolls on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 16-18mins (18-20mins if from frozen) or until golden brown. Remove the sausage rolls onto a cooling rack. Serve with chutney, ketchup or HP sauce.