Hogmanay in Spring

It's funny how much creatures of habit we are when it comes to cooking. Part of it is seasonality of ingredients, but part of it is about memory. This week I decided to do a bit of remembering and shake things up a bit.

It's my brother's 60th birthday today. One thing I remember through my teenage years is that he and a bunch of his friends from the local rugby club would descend on my parents house on Hogmanay either just before or about half an hour after the Bells had rung. They were a nice group of lads and pretty well behaved. In fact the only time I remember an incident was one of them being very unwell in my parents living room, but he'd telegraphed it well and the team captain with great aplomb had quickly emptied out the open tin of Quality Street under the Christmas tree and shoved it under the unfortunate bloke's nose. He was as sick as only a man who has drunk untold pints of IPA can be, but he was still sober enough to walk to the loo and wash out the tin. We found an empty tupperware to gather up the scattered Quality Street before two hungry and fat black labradors could get their teeth into them.

Anyway, the point of this ramble is that every Hogmanay, my mum would cook knowing that my brother and his mates were on their way. It would be easy food - ham and egg pies, lots of shortbread, and most popular of all, home-made sausage rolls. She only ever made sausage rolls at Christmas and most importantly at New Year, and so in the years since I make sausage rolls every Christmas and New Year, and don't do it at any other time of the year - until now.

In honour of my brother's 60th birthday, and in memory of all those Hogmanay gatherings, I decided to make sausage rolls this weekend.

Assembled ingredients - one pack of shop-bought puff pastry, 1lb of good quality butcher pork sausages, breadcrumbs, finely chopped onion, dried thyme (sometimes I use sage), salt/pepper/egg wash and some flour for dusting. I usually put a dash of Lee & Perrins in, but I completely forgot - I blame brain confusion with going off-piste on the normal timeline of making these.

Slit the sausage skins and put the sausage meat in a bowl, add chopped onion to your own taste), breadcrumbs to stop it being too soggy and for binding (about one slice of bread is usually enough, but I had a hot spare on standby that didn't get used.) Add your seasonings and get your hands in to give it a good old mix. (do take any rings off beforehand, and I say this from bitter past experience...)Add a dusting of flour if needed to make it easier and slightly drier to handle.

Divide the sausage mixture into four and with your hands roll out each portion until it makes a long sausage (it can break up and be uneven, but it's part of the fun and they're going to be covered in pastry so who cares).

My pastry had two separate pieces - roll them out separately,  until they are long enough to accommodate the sausage meat, and wide enough to divide in half so you get two long sausage rolls per piece of pastry. Roll the pastry around each long sausage, egg washing as you go on the inside so the pastry sticks to each other.

Snip the pastry to create air holes and egg wash the outside, so it colours nicely. Because my baking pans are short, I chop each roll in two so it fits. Cook at around 400F for about 30/40 mins until pastry is nice and golden and cooked and sausage filling is also cooked.I sometimes switch the oven off and give it another 10 minutes in the ambient heat to ensure the sausage is properly cooked, but without browning the pastry anymore.

You should end up with long lengths of sausagey goodness, that I then chop into mini sausage rolls, because there's nothing quite like a mini sausage roll. Eat hot or cold. I try not to eat too many out of the oven so I have a stash to put in the freezer for future consumption.

So happy 60th birthday to my big brother. I'll eat some sausage rolls and celebrate a springtime Hogmanay in your honour. The Quality Street is optional!