These are my all time favourite sausage rolls – I got the recipe from my parent’s amah in Singapore who is an absolutely lovely woman and an exceptional cook! We have made these sausage rolls plenty of times together for parties, and they have always been a roaring success.

A word of advise, if you are going to entertain while travelling or living in a new country – I would highly suggest that you do a test run with what you intend to cook for your guests, with the ingredients at hand in your new country! Sometimes the most basic of ingredient that you take for granted is not readily available, or if it is – you just don’t know what to ask for! How on earth do you say Puff Pastry in Spanish?

‘C’ and I are planning on throwing a cocktail party next week and I really wanted to make these rolls, but I was a bit nervous about it, as I had not seen the puff pastry that I was used to here  – so I decided to do a test run, and I’m really glad that I did.

In the middle of making the Sausage Rolls I was so close to just giving up, thinking that the whole thing had been a disaster. The puff pastry I found here is not the usual frozen type which you can find in Asia or Europe – rather it was sold fresh in the bread section of the supermarket…to be honest I am not even sure if it WAS puff pastry.

It was really hard to work with, and I did the mistake of taking it out of the fridge while I was preparing the meat, so it was far too warm and sticky, resulting in a lot of tearing (and swearing on my part). I know that if I had left this to the morning of the party, I would have been incredibly stressed. However, in the end I managed to make them, and they came out beautifully! They may be slightly more doughy then usual and didn’t get that golden colour I was after…. but I have not been able to stop eating them since they came out of the oven…..

These little bad boys will definitely be on the menu for next weeks party and the best of it all is, I have picked up a few tips along the way and have learnt a few things in the process – isn’t that what cooking is all about?

Ingredients

• 200g chicken breast fillet, roughly chopped
• 150g mild pancetta, chopped
• 1 clove garlic – crushed
• 3 spring onions – chopped
• 2 tblsp fresh coriander – chopped
• 2 bird’s eye chillies – seeded and finely chopped
• 1 tsp fish sauce
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 375g block frozen puff pastry
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbslp sesame seeds

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Put the chicken pancetta, garlic, spring onion, coriander, chilli, fish sauce, whole egg and ginger in a food processor and process until combined.

Roll out the pastry to an oblong 30 x 40cm and then cut in half lengthways. Take half the filling and form it into a long sausage shape and along the long edge of the pastry.

Brush the edge with a little water and fold over, pressing down the seal. Place the sealed edge underneath.

Repeat with the other half of the pastry and filling.

Using a sharp knife, cut the sausage rolls into 3cm lengths on the diagonal. Brush the tops with egg yolk, then sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden. Serve with sweet chilli sauce and garnished with fresh coriander.

Note

• I have no food processor so I was madly chopping everything up with a cleaver…which although affective is not as quick!
• We also did not have chilli or coriander at hand and this did not affect the flavour too much.