This works just as well for Christmas as a starter or for New Year’s Eve as a sharing dish. Basically it’s a giant sausage roll wrapped around a pot of cranberry sauce. The sausage roll is cut so the sections are easily torn away, making this an excellent (and festive) sharing dish. The preparation time is quite long, as you’re making the rough puff pastry from scratch.
Prep time: 60-80 minutes/Cook time: 20 minutes/Serves: 8
Ingredients:
For the rough puff pastry:
125ml (1/2 cup) cold water
250g (8oz) plain flour
2 tsp lemon juice
100g (3½oz) cold butter, cut into 1cm/½in cubes
50g (1¾ oz) cold lard, cut into 1cm/½in cubes
For the filling:
300g (10½oz) sausage meat
1 tsp salt
1 red habanero chilli, minced (or ½ tsp chilli flakes for a milder effect)
finely-grated zest of 1 orange
small bunch of sage, finely chopped
1 egg, beaten
200g (7oz) cranberry sauce, to serve
Method:
For the rough puff pastry, mix together the water, flour and lemon juice in a bowl until they come together. Tip out onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes until smooth and pliable. Cover with cling film and leave to relax for 10 minutes.
Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to a 15x45cm/6x18in rectangle. Try to keep the edges as straight as possible – this will make it easier to fold.
Take the cold fats out of the fridge and arrange them at random on the rolled out dough covering two-thirds of the surface, leaving a 15cm/6in square piece free.
Fold the uncovered piece of pastry over, so it covers half of the fat-covered pastry and press the edges down. Fold these two layers of pastry over the remaining piece to form a square consisting of three layers of pastry separating two layers of fat.
Turn the pastry 90 degrees and roll out again to 45x15cm (18×6 in), fold back into a square as before, cover with cling film and put in the fridge to cool for at least 20 minutes. This is one turn.
Meanwhile for the filling, mix the sausage meat thoroughly in a bowl with the salt, chilli flakes, orange zest and sage. Roll into a ball, coat with flour to stop it sticking and set aside.
Take the chilled pastry out of the fridge and roll, fold and turn twice as before. Wrap in cling film and return to the fridge for another 20 minutes to firm up again.
Preheat your oven to 220°C (200°C Fan/435°F/Gas Mark 7) and line a large baking tray with parchment paper.
Lightly flour a work surface and roll out the sausage meat to a 60cm (24 in) long sausage. Set aside.
Flour the work surface again and quickly roll out the chilled pastry to a 15x60cm (6x24in) rectangle. Place the sausage meat in the centre of the pastry and brush a 2cm (1in) strip of beaten egg along the long edge of pastry closest to you. Roll the dry edge of pastry over the sausage meat until you have one 60cm long sausage roll, stuck together with the egg wash.
Shape the sausage roll into a circle, making sure to keep the pastry seam at the bottom and gently lay on the baking sheet. Use a little more egg to stick the two ends together.
Using kitchen scissors cut 16 sausage rolls, leaving the inner circle of pastry (about ¼ of the thickness of each roll) connected, creating a wreath shape. Liberally egg wash the whole wreath, then slash the pastry quite deeply diagonally a couple of times on each sausage roll.
Bake in the centre of your pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden-brown and cooked through. Eat warm, serving with a bowl of cranberry sauce in the middle of the wreath.
