Juicy, slightly sweet, slightly spicy and well seasoned ground pork filling mixed with deliciously caramelized apple and roasted fennel spice, wrapped in a golden brown, buttery, flaky puff pastry. So I heard that the USA is unfamiliar with sausage rolls. What the hell? That’s unacceptable! Time to change that! 🙂 While that may not be true for all Americans, I feel like those who don’t know about it might be seriously missing out on some amazing comfort food magic! Wikipedia calls it a British savory pastry snack that’s popular in many commonwealth countries, which I can totally attest to. I present to you, the wickedly delicious, sausage roll!
What is a sausage roll?
It’s ground/minced meat (pork, beef, veel, chicken, lamb – whatever!), seasoned and spiced as a filling. Then it is wrapped in pastry (puff pastry or shortcrust pastry sometimes). Finally it is glazed with some egg wash and then baked to a golden brown, buttery, flaky, all kinds of drool-worthy savory treat! No, it’s not “rolled sausage” and it’s not pigs in a blanket, though it may look like a closely-related cousin. It’s so much better than pigs in a blanket. It’s hard to beat a flaky, buttery, well-seasoned sausage roll, warm out of the oven. Very hard. Maybe even impossible. You could also make a super simple version of these like my 3-ingredient easy sausage rolls!
Pork sausage rolls
Here, I gave these an even more flavorful twist by making Pork Sausage Rolls with caramelized apple and fennel. Deliciously caramelized sweet apple and roasted fennel spice (with undertones of mint), mixed with pork. This gives you a well seasoned, sweet, juicy, slightly spicy and spiced pork filling that is wrapped in a buttery, flaky puff pastry. If you haven’t had sausage rolls before, there’s really no time to waste. 🙂 Just like Wikipedia says, sausage rolls were a quintessential part of my childhood while growing up in New Zealand and later in Australia. As kids, these were some of our favorite party starter recipes. And as adults, it was an easy to make, yet delicious meal when you were short on time and cash. These are widely popular in cafes, and available in supermarkets in frozen form, so all you got to do is bake ’em at home and serve fresh for lunch/dinner, for guests or at parties as a snack/appetizer. I can’t even recall the number of times I used a couple (or more, there may have been more) of these to substitute a full meal aaand… Something this good needs a bit of love. That is why I’m not going to just take some minced meat and then slap it on a pastry, bake it and be done. Nope, no can do. The caramelized apple and fennel take these to a whole new gourmet level, so that a glass of wine would not be out of place next to a plateful of these.
Recipe notes
Caramelizing apples adds another layer of flavor to the sausage rolls. Apple sauce was an option, but that would have integrated with the pork filling too much and not given me a distinct apple flavor. So I went with bits of caramelized apple that gave me bursts of delicious flavor, every time I bit into the roll. The apple is cut into really small 1 cm thick batons and sliced thinly. These pieces, when caramelized, didn’t interfere with the integrity or the consistency of the pork filling, since you don’t want a separated or crumbly sausage filling either. You want it nice and smooth, juicy, without large pieces of anything. I achieved that with the really small pieces of caramelized apple, while adding a wonderful sweetness to the filling too. And to balance that sweetness, I added roasted fennel. The fennel was ground to a powder (or you can use already ground fennel powder). This has undertones of mint, along with some chili flakes for some heat. Plus I added some breadcrumbs with some melted butter to keep the pork really nice and juicy. Since I used lean pork, the extra fat from the butter will help to keep it juicy. If you’re using pork that isn’t lean, then you can skip the butter. I sprinkled some black sesame seeds on top but that was purely for aesthetics. You can use white sesame seeds, poppy seeds or just keep it plain. I also sprinkled some sea salt on top, but that too is optional. You can make these sausage rolls with Homemade Rough Puff Pastry, instead of store-bought too! Did I mention how great these taste? Well, I think it bears repeating. 🙂 You can serve these with some ketchup or tomato sauce on the side (I made some from scratch). Personally, I very much prefer eating them without any kind of dipping sauce. Too much ketchup or dipping sauce can hide the flavors of the apple, fennel and pork filling. Adding finely sliced apple is much better than adding apple puree. This is because you can still taste the caramelized apple quite distinctly. They add a subtle sweetness that’s present throughout the pork filling. Rather than the apple disappearing into the filling, you can taste and feel the fruit sweetness in every bite. The fennel adds a nice spicy freshness too. So if you’ve never had sausage rolls before, go ahead and give these pork sausage rolls a try. You too will regret nothing. Nothing!
