Middle eastern lamb sausage rolls

These are so good! A hum of cumin, a kick of harissa, sweet currants, and delicious pops of pinenuts. 

These are surprisingly easy too. Mix up the filling and you are almost there. A handy tip - freeze the filling in advance, in log shapes between baking paper, ready to place and roll in the pastry, for a quick assembly on the day.  (defrost the night before, along with the ready-made puff pastry).  You could also make the sausage rolls (unbaked) in advance and freeze – they will keep up to a month.

One of my go-to recipes for large dinner parties especially with the easy early preparation and number of serves.

Makes at least 30 at 5cm lengths and more depending how small you make them.

 

Pictured: Middle eastern lamb sausage rolls

1kg lamb mince

1 brown onion, grated or very finely chopped

½ cup pinenuts

¼ cup rose harissa or normal harissa

¼ currants

Small handful of finely chopped parsley

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tsp salt and lots of freshly ground pepper

1 kg puff pastry

1 egg, whisked for an egg wash

Sesame seeds to sprinkle on top, a few tablespoons

Defrost the party, preheat oven to 200°C fan forced or 220 °C conventional.

Have trays ready with baking paper.

Make the filling – in a large bowl, mix the mince, onion, pinenuts, harissa, currants, parsley, cumin and season well with salt and pepper. Mix really well.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out your pastry to 3mm thick into a rectangle.

To prepare for oven - lay a long sausage shape along the long edge of the pastry; roll it over and seal with the egg wash and cut to size, around 5cm, and repeat. (For cocktail parties I like to make small bit size sausage rolls approx. 3cm)

Brush with egg wash on the top, sprinkle with sesame seeds. 

 

 

Pictured: Cutting little Middle eastern sausage rolls ready for oven

To cook –place on the prepared trays and bake for about 15 minutes until risen and then lower to 180 °C fan forced (200 °C conventional) and bake until golden, check after 5 minutes and again in five. They also can be cooked in an air fryer in batches for 8 minutes at 200 °C.

If you bake from frozen, they will need more time, an extra 10 minutes or so.