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Grand Final Sausage Rolls

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Today should be the Australian Rules Football Grand Final – it is always the last Saturday in September. Thanks to COVID-19 and a late start to a shortened competition, the Final is going to be a month late.

Nevertheless, why not still make Grand Final Sausage Rolls. Eat some today and freeze some for next month! It’s a Win-win (unlike the actual game)!

Here’s the recipe that I made up today. It’s pretty good.

750g pork mince
2 eshallots (or 1/2 onion) diced finely and sauteed
1 grated carrot
4 tsp garlic
1 tbsp + 1 tsp freshly, coarsely  ground fennel seeds (measure after you grind them)
1 tbsp cracked black pepper
1 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 – 1 cup fresh bread crumbled

4 sheets puff pastry
1 egg for brushing
Sesame seeds

 

Feta and Lamb Gozleme

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Tonight I made gozleme for the first time, and it turned out really well. I hunted my cookbooks and online for recipes, and they were all varied. Some had yeast and some didn’t. Some were flour and oil. Some included yoghurt. In the end I based it on this recipe from Gourmet Traveller.

I made half the dough recipe for the two of us.

100g wholemeal flour
200g plain flour
130ml water
75ml plain yoghurt
1 tbsp vegetable oil

I mixed these in the bread machine for 10 minutes.

Read the recipe to see how to roll it out. I think I added too much oil in the rolling process, as it was a little greasy.

Once rolled and folded, the dough rested for about half an hour and that was fine, as it absorbed the oil more and softened.

For the filling I combined
shredded silverbeet leaves (raw)
spring onions
finely chopped roast lamb
minced garlic
home-made feta
mozarella
2 tsp Turkish spice mix from Herbie’s Spices
juice of 1/4 lemon
black pepper and sea salt

Assemble and cook as in the recipe.

It’s a bit of work to roll out the dough. I was really happy with the finished thickness and texture.

Mushroom & Cheese Pie

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Here’s my mushroom, cheese and leek pie. I’m extremely happy. It’s only the second or third time I’ve made pastry by hand. I usually use Maggie Beer’s sour cream pastry which you blitz in a blender. Also it’s the second time I’ve tried to make a lattice, and thanks to a Youtube lesson, it worked!

The recipe is based on a recipe by Samantha Coutts in Delicious magazine, May 2017.

Pastry
750g plain flour
1 tsp white pepper
2 tsp salt
200g salted butter, chopped
150g lard
4 tbsp sour cream
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Mix the flour, pepper and salt together. With your hands or in a food processor, mix in the butter and lard until you get uneven crumbs. Put in a bowl and make a well in the centre.

Mix sour cream and cider vinegar, then add 4 tbsp iced water. Pour into the well and use a knife to make slices in the flour to mix it all together. Move to a floured surface and knead it into a ball. Don’t overwork it. Wrap in cling wrap and put back into the fridge for at least an hour.

I need to say that I had heaps of dough left over…. 

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Savoury Monkey Bread

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Last night we made this very tasty savoury monkey bread to eat with pumpkin soup, and today I’m eating the leftovers with butter for lunch.

You can find the original recipe here.

The toppings that we used were nigella seeds, ground pepitas, parsley + chives, ground almond, sesame seeds, chia seeds, Parmesan, ground wattleseed, ginseng spice mix.