Hidden Veggie Sausage Rolls, from Alice Arndell

Alice Arndell shares her recipe for Hidden Veggie Sausage Rolls

This is one of those recipes that let you feel like a slightly superior parent for tricking your kids into eating their veggies – the bonus is they taste terrific to grown-ups too!

Makes about 20 sausage rolls

Ingredients

1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped

2 medium-sized carrots, finely grated

½ head broccoli or 2 medium-sized zucchini, finely grated

800 g minced beef, lamb, pork or chicken

1 cup breadcrumbs (I used wholegrain)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp salt

¼–½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 egg

700 g puff pastry, defrosted but still cool

1 egg combined with 1 tbsp water, for brushing

2 tbsp sesame seeds, for sprinkling

Method

Preheat oven to 200°C. Line baking trays with baking paper.

In a large bowl, place all ingredients except pastry, egg wash and sesame seeds, and mix thoroughly – it’s best to use your hands for this and kind of mush the filling between your fingers.

Roll out pastry flat on the bench and cut in half lengthways and crossways to make four smaller rectangles of pastry.

Take handfuls of mince mixture and roll out to logs about 3 cm in diameter. Place in the middle of each pastry rectangle.

Brush egg wash all along the long edge of each piece of pastry and roll up firmly. Cut each long roll into 5–6 smaller rolls.

Place sausage rolls seam-side down on prepared baking trays with 3–4 cm around them, brush tops with more egg wash then sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for 20 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 180°C and bake for another 8–10 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm with lashings of tomato sauce.

Baker’s Note – Finely shredding veggies

The key to these sausage rolls is to make sure your veggies are really finely grated. I suggest you grate them coarsely then process them briefly in the food processor. If you don’t have a food processer then grate them finely, pile them up on a chopping board and chop at them with a large knife for a minute or two.

© Bake Me Home: Delicious everyday occasions

By Alice Arndell

Published by HarperCollins New Zealand