Highland Sausage Rolls

Total Time: 8 hrs 30 mins Preparation Time: 8 hrs Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 6
• 10 ounces venison (trimmed weight)
• 6 ounces lamb belly (trimmed weight)
• 2 ounces pitted prunes
• 1 small onion
• tea (the remains of a pot of tea)
• 3 tablespoons port wine
• allspice, thyme,and/or worcester sauce,to taste
• 1 lb premade puff pastry
• 1 egg, beaten,to glaze

Recipe

• 1 mince the meats finely (if the butcher has not already done so), chop the onion very finely and mix together.
• 2 season with a good grinding of pepper- but no salt- and some allspice, thyme and/or a few shakes of worcester sauce.
• 3 pour on the port and mix well, then cover and leave for several hours or overnight to allow the flavours to blend.
• 4 cover the prunes with cold tea and leave to soak for several hours.
• 5 season your sausagemeat mixture with salt and/or sage and roll it into a long, fat “link” sausage shape.
• 6 roll the pastry out to a rectangle and lay the"sausage" down the length of it.
• 7 lay the whole drained prunes on top of the meat.
• 8 dampen one long edge of the pastry with beaten egg, roll up carefully and seal.
• 9 alternatively you may like to enclose the sausage in a decorative pastry plait.
• 10 in this case, roll the pastry out to a square, lay the"sausage" down the centre and place the whole drained prunes on top.
• 11 cut the pastry diagonally into ½-inch strips on either side of the meat.
• 12 dampen the end of each pastry strip with beaten egg then fold the strips alternately from each side, over the meat to create a plait effect.
• 13 seal the pastry ends.
• 14 slide the pastry parcel on to a damp baking sheet and glaze the top.
• 15 if you have made a sausage roll, decorate it with pastry leaves and make one or two steam slits in the top of the pastry.
• 16 bake at 425f/220c/gas mark 4 for a further 25 minutes or so.