Elevate your sausage rolls this Grand Final weekend with a fancier twist on an old favourite.

Recipes & Styling Natalie Homan | Photographs Brendan Homan

Roast chicken and stuffing sausage rolls
serves 8

All the flavours we love in a roast chicken with all the trimmings wrapped up in a buttery, flaky pastry!

for rough puff pastry
250g plain flour
250g chilled butter, cubed
½ tsp salt
120ml chilled water

for filling
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
1 small carrot, finely diced
1 celery stick, finely diced
200g bacon, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
8 sage leaves, finely chopped
12 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
500g chicken mince
100g pork mince
⅓ cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 tsp lemon zest
pinch of nutmeg
1 tsp sea salt
½ tsp cracked black pepper + more to garnish

for egg wash
1 egg
¼ cup milk

For pastry, place flour, butter and salt into a medium bowl and roughly rub butter into flour, leaving large pieces of butter intact. Pour in water and mix with your hands to begin bringing mixture together. Lightly flour your kitchen bench, turn out mixture and form into a rough, shaggy dough. Press into a disc, wrap in clingfilm and place into the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Return dough to the floured bench and roll out into a
30cm x 40cm rectangle, fold into thirds, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Repeat twice more.

Meanwhile, to make filling, heat a frypan over medium-to-high heat, add olive oil, onion, carrot and celery and saute until softened. Add bacon and saute for 2 minutes. Add garlic, sage and thyme (retaining a few leaves to garnish with) and saute for a further minute. Allow to cool before placing in a large bowl with remaining filling ingredients. Mix well to combine and store in refrigerator until ready to use.

Whisk together egg and milk for egg wash.

Cut dough in half. Roll each piece into a rectangle about 24cm x 30cm. Working with one piece of pastry at a time (keep remaining piece chilled in refrigerator), cut in half lengthwise (you will have two 12cm x 30cm pieces of pastry). Place a quarter of the filling in a sausage shape along length of pastry. Brush edge of pastry with egg wash and roll to enclose filling. Cut in half. Repeat with remaining pastry and filling. Brush sausage rolls with egg wash and sprinkle with cracked pepper.

Preheat oven to 200C and place sausage rolls in refrigerator to chill slightly while oven comes to temperature. Transfer sausage rolls onto 2 baking-paper-lined trays and bake until golden and cooked through, approximately 30 minutes.

Serve garnished with thyme leaves.