Cyndi's vegetarian sausage rolls

[JaneeZee]

Has anyone tried making these?  I tried today & while they tasted OK I found the mixture very runny so it oozed out of the pastry.  The recipe was confusing too when it talked about assembling them.....
"Cut just thawed puff pastry in half on a working bench.
Place 1/6th of the mixture onto the long edge of the pastry and roll, cut into four equal portions etc.........."

Appreciate any help.  Maybe I just needed to let the mixture stand a bit - it has breadcrumbs & oats in it - so moisture may go into those over time??  Like I have admitted before, I was never a cook, the TM has been my saving grace, so I get a bit stumped when things go unexpectedly!!

[I Love Bimby!]

Hi JaneeZee,
While I haven't made these ones before I've been experimenting with making my own meat version ones, and the first one was a flop and I experienced similar to what you are describing, but yesterdays were perfect, so here's my suggestions:

Mixture Runny,
Either reduce the wet ingredients (ie egg??), increase the breadcrumbs, oats, maybe add some corn flour or perhaps place the mixture in the fridge for a couple of hours for the existing breadcrumbs and oats to have time to absorb the moisture (they often do this with rissole mixtures).
My first lot of meat ones were quiet runny and leaked heaps of "juice" out. So when I got them out of the oven the bottoms were soggy.  This time I added corn flour and I didn't get that problem so the bottoms were nicely done.

Cutting the Puff Pastry,
-With the square laid out in front of you, cut it in half so you have 2 rectangles. 
-Pipe the mixture down the centre of the length of rectangles starting from one short side down to the other short side III  III  (see note below)
-Then brush one of the long sides on each piece of pastry. 
-Roll the pastry over to make a long 'sausage" and press the edges of the long sides together - so about 5mm of that side is flat. 
-Press with a fork to seal. 
-Then slice each long sausage roll into 3-4 short sausage rolls. ---- = - - - -
Note: I found this way easier than trying to "roll" the pastry around to form a cylinder and overlapping around the mixture.

Piping,
When piping I use one of those piping bags from the supermarket with the nozzel taken off.  I hold it at about 45^o above the pastry and move back towards me very slowly so that the mixture pipes out into itself and becomes a thicker 'tube' of mixture. I hope that makes sense 
I found that without doing this the line of mixture was too think and the sausage roll would be half full of air or a waste of pastry by the time it was rolled over.

I hope that helps. 

[Thermomixer]

Hi Jane - what are the ingreds in the filling? 

Sounds like they must be about the shape/size of a spring roll if you cut the pastry sheet into sixths.

[Maggie]

Hi JaneeZee,

I haven't made these for a while, but they're really lovely and worth persisting with. I use 3 sheets of pastry, each cut in half, then put 1/6 of the filling mixture on the slightly longer edge of each peice of pastry and roll. Then score them so they can be cut into 3 or 4 small peices. This makes them thinner than standard sized sausage rolls. I find once the mixture is cooked it doesn't ooze out, but do tend to cook these for slightly longer than the recipe states (an extra 5 - 10 minutes).

[JaneeZee]

Ingredients are:
1 onion
2tbsp mixed herbs
100g fresh walnuts
95g organic rolled oats
3 eggs
150g fetta cheese
1 tbsp Tamari
45g organic breadcrumbs

I made my own rough puff pastry using EDC recipe so wasn't sure how big the "sheets" should be.  Even so, it was very "wet" filling so I struggled to get it into the pastry & as soon as I cut them into appropriate sizes they oozed everywhere!!
They tasted fine but I couldn't really present them anywhere other than home.
Do you think it would have been better to have let it sit for a while so oats & breadcrumbs could absorb moisture?
I didn't have time to do that & the breadcrumbs were still frozen when I blasted them for inclusion.  Maybe it was the type of fetta I used although that seemed pretty solid............dunno - just bemused!!!

[Maggie]

I haven't tried making my own pastry yet, but can see that not having uniformly sized sheets would make it hard.

I really love these so will give it another go on the weekend and let you know how it goes.

[JaneeZee]

I haven't tried making my own pastry yet, but can see that not having uniformly sized sheets would make it hard.

I really love these so will give it another go on the weekend and let you know how it goes.

Thanks Maggie.  The pastry made in the TM is wonderful.  I was always able to make pastry but it is so quick & efficient in the TM that there is no excuse not to (& you know exactly what type of fat is in it!).

Look forward to your feedback on how the non sausage rolls go.

[brazen20au]

haha i can't even do it in the TMX! my one attempt was  a disaster

[Thermomixer]

Ingredients are:
1 onion
2tbsp mixed herbs
100g fresh walnuts
95g organic rolled oats
3 eggs
150g fetta cheese
1 tbsp Tamari
45g organic breadcrumbs

Looking at your list of ingredients, I think your idea of letting the filling rest is the answer.

Not sure what the method is, but I would blitz the onion til fairly fine and cook it for a few minutes (without oil/butter - maybe a splash of water) at 100 deg.  Add the walnuts and few seconds at 6 to break up.  Add the rest and mix on reverse, speed 3 or 4 for 15 to 20 seconds, then leave in the fridge for 10-15 minutes while rolling out the pastry.

The oats and breadcrumbs should really start to absorb the excess moisture and form a firm mass in that time.

Most sheets of pastry on sale are about 25 - 30 cm square, so they would be pretty small if cut into 1/6ths - remembering that circumference = 2 x Pi x radius - they would end up less than 1 cm diameter ?

[I Love Bimby!]

I think the recipe refers to the non "sausage mixture" being divided into 6 rather than the pastry sheets.

[JaneeZee]

ILB is correct.....

Using the sine equals opposite over hypotenuse approach to dividing the two components (!!) I had not enough pastry to divide the mix into 6ths - unless I had non sausage straws...........

However, others have succeeded so I await further input...........

Karen - just do it!!  The pastry is so simple.  Which one did you try?  The shortcrust, almond & rough puff are all really simple.  Although I am using "evil" gluten type flour so maybe that's where the difference lies.   

[brazen20au]

i haven't attempted GF yet, only gluten puff LOL

[Thermomixer]

I think the recipe refers to the non "sausage mixture" being divided into 6 rather than the pastry sheets.

Yes, need to put my glasses on and my brain into gear - half a sheet to roll it in sounds just fine !! 

[This gig]

Hi, I have made these a couple of times, as the kids really loved them.
I used store bought pastry, three sheets,  cut in half, mixture shared between each piece of pastry. I guess if you are making your own pastry, you could roll it to about the shopbought square size.
The mixture looked impossible, but miraculousy held together when rolled in the pastry - I think though if the pastry was not so uniform, it would be difficult to contain the mixture.

[Maggie]

Hi JaneeZee,

I gave these a try yesterday using the rough puff pastry recipe as you suggested. It was absolutely beautiful, well worth the effort, with such a marked difference from the butter puff pastry you can purchase    I wasn't certain how it would roll out, so divided the pastry in two and rolled two approx 30x30cm sheets (similar to store brought size) and used one store brough piece. Next time I'll try dividing the pastry into three and rolling it thinner.

I made the filling exactly as per the recipe, except that I used dried herbs instead of fresh. The mixture is more "runny" that meat would be, but rolled into each 1/2 piece of pastry with only a little oozing from the sides. I noticed the pastry recipe stated to cook it at 220 degrees for the first 20 minutes, so cooked the rolls at this temperature until golden (about 22 - 25 minutes). The end result was just right, the pastry was crisp, not soggy on the bottom as I've had in previous attempts and the mixture once cooked looked just like sausage meat.

I think so long as each peice of pastry is approx 30x30cm there should be enough to roll up the filling, even though it is a little "oozy" and fiddly to roll. When you try again JaneeZee, I'd love to hear how you go