London lunch box: Chorizo and fennel sausage rolls with smoky chipotle sauce

This week, Laoise Casey rustles up a lunch box fit for a picnic
Laoise Casey
Laoise Casey11 July 2017

Like making your own mayonnaise or bread by hand, baking your own sausage rolls has something inherently satisfying about it. Perhaps that is because you get to eat them straight from the oven, when they’re actually still too hot, but damn it all, sometimes I do like to live dangerously.

I made these chorizo and fennel ones recently for a ‘picnic’ date with a pal. We had high hopes of al fresco/al desko dining. I had visions of a fancy wicker basket, mimosas, tiny delicate finger sandwiches, fizzy lemonade, you know that kind of thing. But, of course, it rained. So we ended up gobbling our mini rolls indoors in the sitting room, with the closest thing to a picnic blanket being my red and white tea towel. They were still delicious.

For our lunch box we’re having them with a smoky chipotle sauce and on the side a sweet and sharp salad, with sweet pickled red onions, cucumber and feta. This recipe makes more sausage rolls than you would reasonably need for two lunch boxes. But I do think that if you’re going to do something, well you may as well go the whole hog. If you must, then freeze the rest once they are rolled, just before the final egg wash stage.

Alternatively they keep well in the fridge for a day, ready to be baked, for that impromptu al fresco or sitting room picnic.

Ingredients (makes salad and sauce for 2)

For the sausage rolls (makes 16 mini rolls)

500g pork mince

100g chorizo, skin removed and diced

1 tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 x 320g sheet ready rolled puff pastry

1 egg, lightly beaten with a splash of milk

1 tsp nigella seeds

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1/6

For the salad

1 red onion, thinly sliced

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

Pinch of caster sugar

½ a cucumber, seeds removed and thinly sliced

50g feta

For the chipotle sauce

3 tbsp light crème fraîche

1 tsp chipotle paste

Sea salt flakes, cracked black pepper

Method

To make the sausage rolls

Preheat the oven to 180C. In a bowl, mix together the mince, chorizo, fennel and paprika. Season with salt and pepper. With a sharp knife, cut the pastry into two long even rectangles. Divide the sausage filling into two then place in the middle of each pastry strip in a long cylinder, leaving around a 1cm edge on each side.

Brush one edge lightly with the egg wash. Fold the other side of the pastry over then press gently to seal.

At this stage, if I have time I’ll chill them for 20 minutes in the fridge before baking. Brush the rolls with egg wash and sprinkle with the nigella seeds. Cut each roll into 8 pieces.

Bake on a baking tray (with greaseproof paper for less mess, as the chorizo may seep out a little) for 25 – 30 minutes until golden brown and cooked through. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the salad

Sprinkle the red onion with the vinegar and sugar. Set aside in a bowl for 15 minutes, then drain. Gently toss together the cucumber and onion and crumble the feta on top. As the feta adds salt, I like to finish this with a generous pinch of cracked black pepper.

To make the chipotle sauce

Stir together the crème fraîche with the chipotle paste and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Laoise (Lee-sha) is a chef, food stylist and writer, living in London. Follow her on Twitter @laoisecooks and Instagram @laoisecooks. She studied at Leiths School of Food and Wine, where she now teaches. She has worked in a number of top London restaurants including The Dairy in Clapham and Paradise Garage in Bethnal Green.

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