Skip to main content
Main

Sausage Rolls

Sausage rolls made with minced meat, rough puff pastry, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sausage Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Heat the dripping in a stewpan until smoking hot.

  2. Add the minced meat and stir with a fork until browned.

  3. Move the meat to the side and add flour, salt, pepper, and boiling water.

  4. Simmer gently for 20 to 30 minutes, then let it cool completely.

Assemble and bake

  1. For the rough puff pastry, mix 1 lb flour with ½ lb butter and enough cold water to form a dough.

  2. Roll out the dough to a 1-foot square and cut into 9 squares.

  3. Place a spoonful of the cooled mince on each square.

  4. Wet the edges with milk or water, fold over, and seal with a knife.

  5. Place on a greased baking sheet, brush with egg or milk, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Minced meat
Forms the savoury filling that gives the rolls their body and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the meat juices into a stable, spoonable filling.
Butter
Creates flaky layers in the rough puff pastry as it melts and steams during baking.
Egg or milk
Brushed on top to promote a glossy, golden browned crust.

The step that matters

Cool the mince completely before filling. Warm filling softens the raw pastry and melts the butter layers before baking, so the pastry can turn greasy and fail to puff.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More sausage rolls recipes

Beef 3 See all 56 →

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes