How to make crumbly homemade sausage rolls

The history of the humble British classic the 'sausage roll' yes I said British so any Americans who think that just because you wrapped a Frank in pastry instead of a roll and called it 'puff dog' doesn't mean it hadn't already existed since the early 19th century in England.

Now we could go further back to Roman times and even ancient Greece to find references to meat wrapped in dough but that would be vastly different to what we Brits call a sausage roll.

The French also have a claim to around the same time period and maybe we stole it from them but that doesn't matter, it's the fact that we proud Brits have taken this humble snack to our hearts, just like fish and chips where some historian will try to convince you that it comes from somewhere else, well just about everything comes from somewhere else in one form or another, so the sausage roll is ours and that's the end of it OK!

There is a well known national baker in the UK called Greggs who produce Billions (probably) of these things every year and it makes up much of their profits, the term "Gregg's dummy' refers to a baby or toddler or even small child being pacified with a sausage roll while mum gets on with her day. Unfortunately the Gregg's sausage roll is horrible, all pale and floppy with grease oozing out of it onto your lovely clean clothes, so if you've had one of these atrocities, then you really haven't got the right idea of what a proper sausage roll is.

So I do hope that you give making your own one day, you don't have to make your own ruff puff pastry as some shop bought pre-rolled will work just fine. You can be adventurous and make your own sausage meat or just buy your favourite brand and use those. You can spice them up with any thing you like such as chorizo which I used in this video, harissa paste, curry whatever you like. You can use a vegetarian sausage alternative, the list goes on.