Sausage turnover

Wrapped in tinfoil and newspaper
this should keep warm for 3 hours

I suppose sausage turnover is just a very big posh sausage roll really! It’s a popular dish for shooting parties and winter picnics.

This recipe is by Nicola Cox. When I lived in Buckinghamshire I used to go to her cookery lessons at Farthinghoe, so some of my inspiration for picnics is undoubtedly due to Nicola.

You can double or treble the recipe, prepare and leave it ready to cook for a large picnic party. If you want to freeze it, use fresh sausage-meat and fresh pastry and omit the hard-boiled egg. Freeze uncooked and allow a little longer cooking time.

These ingredients will make enough sausage turnover for up to six people.

• 225 gram packet of puff pastry
• 450 grams of pork sausage-meat (highest quality you can find)
• 12 grams of dripping or oil
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 50-75 grams of mushrooms (optional)
• 2 peeled, de-seeded and diced tomatoes (leave in boiling water for a minute to peel)
• 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh herbs or a quarter teaspoon of dried herbs
• 1 large or 2 small hard-boiled eggs
• salt, pepper and a pinch of ground mace
• another egg, not boiled

Melt the dripping or oil in a small frying pan and soften the onion in it. Halve or quarter the mushrooms (if using), add and fry for 3-4 minutes.

Add the mixture to the sausage-meat with the tomatoes, chopped herbs and roughly cut-up hard-boiled eggs. Mix well together, binding with most of the raw egg, and seasoning with salt, pepper and mace.

Roll the packet of pastry thinly to a square of approx. 30 x 35 cms. Set on a greased baking sheet and place the sausage-meat mixture down the centre. Fold up both sides of the pastry and seal with water in a zig-zag crest along the top.

Cut 1-2 slits to let the steam out and brush with any egg left from binding, mixed with a little milk.

Bake in a hot oven – 220 C/Gas 7 – for half an hour or so until well risen, crisp and golden. Wrap immediately in tin foil and again in layers of newspaper and it should keep warm for a few hours. If you are cooking 2 or 3 turnovers at once, allow longer in the oven.