For The Love of Pastry

I have a confession...

It's not pretty but it's true.

I love pastry.

I would eat pastry anywhichway anywhictime my addiction goes that deep. On the scale of 'sexy' foods this would be the food equivalent of a builder in his lowest jeans, however who can honestly say that a meal has not been improved by the sight of something draped in pastry- shortcrust, puff, rough puff we can all agree its buttery richness can only ever add to the overall success of any given food.

With this in mind today you're all in for a treat because yesterday I made a cracking batch of Stilton Sausage Rolls, sinfully simple to make and here's how:

Chop some leeks and fry very slowly in oil, 10 mins ought to do it

Whilst these are cooling down take 6 of the best bangers you can find, preferably with a high meat content to really make these sausage rolls sing.

Remove them from the skins and put in a bowl with the cooled leeks, season as much or as little as you like with salt, pepper and some picked thyme leaves.

Then rolls some all butter puff-pastry into a rectangle roughly 25x30cm but no need to be exactly precise. Cut in half horizontally then in half vertically and you'll be left with 4 identical rectangles.

Roll your cooled sausage and leek mixture into four equal size sausage shapes, its messy work but someones got to do it, and place down the centre of your pastry. Crumble some Stilton roughly and sprinkle liberally over the top (125g in total should do the trick).

Paint some egg wash down the length of one side of pasty and join the two ends together, ensuring that you press together the edges. Leave to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes, whilst you bribe someone else to do the washing up!

When these have firmed up a bit bring them out of the fridge and cut each roll into 5, this will leave you with perfect mouth-sized morsels. Egg wash the top for that lovely golden brown shine and place in a pre-heated oven at 190 degrees.

Leave them for 20 minutes in the oven. Once golden on top and crispy leave to cool for 5 minutes, if you can bear it, and then enjoy warm in whatever way you want. I think these would be lovely with some piccalilli, a fiery rocket salad or just scoffed from the wire cooling racks.

And remember if there are an odd number of rolls... its chefs perks to even them out.

These little babies may not win any beauty pageants but I'd be willing to wager they will definitely make someones belly a little happier.