Sausage Rolls with Fennel, Apple and Sage

Ingredients

• 500g good-quality pork sausagemeat (or sausages, skins removed)
• 1 small Bramley or Cox apple, peeled and coarsely grated
• 2 tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed in a mortar
• 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh sage
• 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp fine salt
• 1 small shallot, very finely chopped
• 1 sheet (320g) ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry
• 1 egg, beaten with 1 tsp milk
• 2 tsp nigella seeds
• flaky sea salt, for scattering
• plain flour, for dusting

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200°C fan/220°C conventional and line two baking trays with greaseproof. Tip the grated apple into a clean tea towel and squeeze hard over the sink — you want the apple's moisture out, not in your pastry. Soggy bottoms start here.
2. In a large bowl, combine the squeezed apple, sausagemeat, crushed fennel seeds, chopped sage, nutmeg, black pepper, salt and shallot. Mix with your hands until evenly distributed but stop the moment it looks uniform — overworking sausagemeat makes it tight and bouncy when baked, and you want it loose and juicy.
3. Unroll the puff pastry on its paper, long edge facing you, and cut it lengthways down the middle into two long strips. Divide the sausagemeat in half and shape each half into a long sausage running down the centre of each strip — wet hands help here, the meat won't stick.
4. Beat the egg with the milk. Brush one long edge of each pastry strip with egg wash, then fold the other edge over the meat and press down firmly along the seam to seal. Roll each log so the seam sits underneath — that's what stops them bursting open in the oven.
5. Cut each log into 6 pieces (so 12 rolls total, or cut smaller into 24 picnic-sized ones if you're feeding a crowd). Space them well apart on the trays, seam-side down. Brush the tops generously with egg wash — twice if you want that proper deep mahogany shine — and scatter with nigella seeds and a pinch of flaky salt.
6. Slash the tops twice with a sharp knife to let steam escape. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the pastry is deeply golden and puffed and the juices bubbling out at the ends run clear, not pink. If the tops are colouring fast but the bottoms look pale, slide them onto the lower shelf for the last 5 minutes — the pastry needs to crisp underneath or it'll go limp as it cools.
7. Let them sit on the tray for 5 minutes before lifting — the pastry firms up as it cools and they'll hold together better. Eat warm with mustard, or cool completely on a rack and pack for the picnic.