Australian Italian Sausage Rolls

Remember back in July when I made Aussie bacon n sausage rolls for you? And do you remember that I said they aren't the traditional style of Aussie sausage rolls? Well, this one is much more the traditional way as it uses bulk sausage meat instead of formed sausages.

Just go back to the July post, have a quick squizz at it then come on back here. I'll wait, no worries.

You're back already? That was quick.

Just to let you know, I didn't measure anything for this, which is coincidentally another Aussie tradition! And I Slape n Sons sausage meat. Made locally here in Adelaide, very tasty, and inexpensive.

Australian Italian Sausage Rolls

What you need:
About 500 grams bulk sausage meat
1 tsp (or thereabouts) ground white pepper
1 tbsp (or so) fennel seeds
small handful of finely minced onion
3 sheets of puff pastry

What you do:

I could very easily describe this in one rather short paragraph but that wouldn't be fair to you as it's been a wee will since I posted anything here. So how about I string it out for a bit using ten (10) pretty pictures? Yes, how about I do that.

Firstly, make sure you have everything needed at hand:




Next mince up the onion and half-grind the fennel seeds in your mortar. Add that plus the white pepper to a large bowl.




And then plop in your sausage meat.

*plop*


Now mix it all together thoroughly. Just use your hand and start squeezin' till it looks like this:




Toss it into your freshly seasoned and brand new thin-walled, polished, cast-iron 15 inch wide wok and light a fire under it. Make sure you break apart the sausage as it cooks, but you probably woulda guessed that part. Here it is halfway cooked:




And here it is fully cooked.




Make sure you drain the meat well.




Take a thawed pastry sheet and cut it into fourths. Put some of the drained meat onto one quarter...




...and then roll it up. I ended up with 13 rolls from one pound of sausage meat. Here's one tray filled with 8 of them.




Bake em in a hot oven till they look like this:

These were cooked at 190 C in a fan-forced, gas oven for around 25 minutes.

Let them cool, bag em up, toss in the freezer. Tada! Sausage rolls for the week. Enjoy.

Grilled Fennel

Yeah! So simple. So good! So TASTY!

Caramalized fennel slabs. Gotta like it.

No "real" recipe as this is pretty darned simple.

Slice your large fennel bulb into 1/2 inch thick slabs.

Rub some olive oil or some bacon fat into the slabs. Grill them (or pan fry) till they are caramelized. Note: If grilling you'll want to move them off the direct heat occasionally so they don't burn.

When they are done, they are done!

I served last night's grilled fennel as a side dish to a sausage burger. The burger was topped with cheese, avocado, bacon, and lettuce. Needless to say, it was devoured quite quickly.

Try getting your mouth around this:



See the grilled fennel slab next to the burger? Yeah, darned good tucka!

Ratatouille with Fennel and Okra

And I served it with feta crumbled over the top and some grilled venison sausages w/okra on the side.

Plates were emptied! Quickly! Very very tasty.

Full disclosure: I've never made ratatouille until I made this. My first try I knocked out of the park!

I got the idea for making ratatouille from a great post at a wonderful food blog. She's a professional chef and teaches cooking classes full-time. Friendly and she answers comments and questions. You can find Helen at:

Beyond Salmon

and her ratatouille is here:

Beyond Salmon's Ratatouille

Go have a quick look and you'll see where I got the inspiration for my Ratatouille. I know that fennel isn't a common ingredient in Ratatouille but it's in season down here in South Oz and very inexpensive. Okra is in season here too, and it IS a staple veggie in Cajun cooking commonly used in gumbos.

And I do apologize for using canned corn. Fresh corn cobs are very pricey down here due to the 10 year ongoing drought. When you use canned corn make sure the ingredients are corn, water, salt. Nothing else. No chemical crap!

A quick word about fresh okra. When you are selecting okra to buy, you want to buy smaller rather than larger. The larger ones can have a "woody" texture. You also want to test a tip or two. If the tip snaps off then they are fresh. If it bends completely over, then that bin of okra is not very fresh. Here's what I mean:

Give the tip a little bend like this:




And the tip should snap off thusly if it is fresh:






Anyways, on with the recipe:


Fennel and Okra Ratatouille with Venison & Okra on the side

What you need:
One large fennel bulb
12 to 16 small, fresh okras
1 large onion, rough chopped
One 12 ounce can of corn kernels
2 or 3 cloves crushed garlic
1 large zucchini
1 can crushed tomatoes
1/2 tbsp dried rosemary
1/2 tbsp dried oregano
sea salt
olive oil
a bit of crumbled feta

4 mini venison sausages (2 per person)
12 to 16 small, fresh okras --in addition to the ones going into the ratatouille
olive oil
sea salt
small handful fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves


What you do:

First, peel and slice the zucchini. Try to aim for 1/2 inch thick slices. Sprinkle the slices with sea salt, toss to coat, and let them set on paper towels for 15 minutes or so --this is to draw moisture out of the zucchini. I do this with eggplant, but it was the first time I'd done it with zucchini. Worked like a charm.

See? Have a look:




Prepare the okra: cut the tips and stems off, then cut each okra into 3 pieces. Don't worry about the sticky stuff as that is normal. Fry them up with a bit of olive oil for a minute or two so they are just browned. Set aside to drain and cool. This is what they look like before lightly frying:




Slice your fennel bulb into 1/4 inch thick slices. If you need to halve or even quarter it to facilitate the slicing then be all means go ahead and do that, no worries.









Now give your onion a rough chopping. Don't make the pieces small otherwise they'll be lost in the ratatouille.

By now the zucchini slices should have lost enough moisture. Give them a quick pat with paper towels and fry them in a bit of olive oil till the just start to brown. A minute or two each side should do the trick. Set them aside to drain.

In the same pot you'll be cooking the ratatouille (I recommend an enameled dutch oven) put the sliced fennel and chopped onion. A bit of olive oil and fry em up. You want the fennel and onion to just caramelize. Once they've caramelized then add the garlic, basil and rosemary; continue to fry for another 30 seconds.

Now you get to de-glaze the pot. Add the liquid from the can of corn to the pot and stir it around so the fennel and onion aren't stuck at all. Put the lid on and simmer on low for 5 minutes.

Add the can of tomatoes and the corn. Simmer for another ten minutes. Now add the zucchini and okra. Put the lid on and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Turn the heat off and let it sit in the dutch oven while you get the sausages and the rest of the okra cooked.

If you want this dish totally vegetarian, then just don't use sausages at this point, no worries.

Hopefully your dutch oven should now look something similar to this:




Cut the rest of the okra into thirds, as you did for the ratatouille. Put the cut okra and the venison sausages into a wok with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle a bit of sea salt, and toss in the coriander leaves:




Fry it up till the sausages are done. Toss/stir regularly so nothing sticks. Once they are done you can plate it up!

Spoon the ratatouille onto a plate, sprinkle with crumbled feta, and put two sausages plus some fried okra onto the plate:




It's easier to make than it sounds and OH SO TASTY!

Again, a big thanks to Beyond Salmon for posting her wonderful ratatouille recipe and guidelines for making it! Thanks Helen!

Australian Sausage Rolls --With BACON!

Cus, like, seriously folks: Doesn't bacon just make any food that much better? I can picture it now... bacon flavoured ice cream... Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Ok, enough of that.

Sausage rolls are very Australian. Like SERIOUSLY Australian! If you are in the US then think of things like this:

mom & apple pie

baseball & hot dogs

nachos & beer

hot dogs & beer

football & beer

burgers, fries & beer

beer & beer

TV & beer gut

Ok, you all sorta get the message! Sausage rolls & Aussies just go together like any perfect combination you can think of.

What is an Aussie sausage roll? Did you know there's this thingy called "google"? They even have an image search function! I suggest you try it!

My homemade sausage rolls are a bit different from the norm (just like me) in the fact that mine include BACON! Bacon, sausage, and puff pastry! Can't beat that!

Here's what you need:

6 thin Aussie sausages (snags or bangers)
6 slices of Aussie bacon (12 if you use tiny US bacon slices)
3 sheets of puff pastry

Nice, short list of ingredients, eh?

What you do:

You first need to half-cook your sausages. If you are using hot dogs (BAD!!!!) then you can omit this step. Here's what a plate of half-cooked aussie sausages look like:





If you are curious, I use Slape n Sons sausages. Tasty, local, fresh.

Let the half-cooked sausages cool, and then wrap each one with a slice of bacon. If you use Aussie bacon, then you'll only need one slice per snag. If you use US bacon, then you'll need 2 bacon slices per snag. Here's why:

Just make sure you trim the rind (skin) off.

Don't forget to make fried worms with the bacon rinds!

Here's what your plate should now be looking like:

Don't worry if the bacon isn't tightly wrapped around the snags. Why? Cus bacon shrinks whilst cookin', doncha know.

Cook the bacon-wrapped, semi-cooked snags on 2 sides till they look something like this:




Let them cool and drain them of cooked bacon/snag fat. Just make sure you keep the drained fat for future use, of course. Once they are cool you get to break out the puff pastry sheets! Wee-Hoo!







Just peel off 3 sheets and put the rest back in the freezer, no worries.




Obviously, let the puff pastry sheets thaw. {insert serious DUH factor here} It shouldn't take long for them to thaw, 30 mins maybe. by the time they are thawed, the 3/4 cooked, bacon-wrapped, Aussie sausages should be cool enough to handle with no worries.

Cut a pastry sheet in half. I use a pizza cutter, BTW. Wrap the half sheet around one of the snags. You'll find there's around about 2 inches you'll need to trim after wrapping the sausage.




Continue till they are all wrapped. Place them some sort of baking sheet or tray.




Do you remember the trimmed off-cuts of the puff pastry that you trimmed after wrapping the 3/4 cooked, bacon-wrapped, Aussie sausages? You should have a nice pile looking something like this:



DO NOT THROW THEM AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!! Heat some oil up and toss them in the hot oil. 30 to 40 seconds a side. You'll find the puff up HUGELY! A very tasty side snack, they do make.

Put the rolls in a hot oven (220 C or 440 F) until they look like this:




At this point you can just pick one up and eat it --let it cool a bit as they really hold their heat-- or you can put em in the fridge or freezer for later, no worries.

And they taste ohhhhhhh so good!