All Wrapped Up! Joan's Sausage Meat Plait

Continuing the theme of things wrapped in other things is today's warming recipe... Herby Sausage Meat Plait. It uses up the leftover stuffing from yesterday and just a few more bits and pieces! It was the brainchild of my Nanny Joan who just loved this recipe!

For this recipe you'll need some shortcrust pasty. You could buy it ready made, but we followed Uncle Joe's famous pastry recipe (in fact he even made it for us!).

For the pasty, rub 8oz of butter with a pound of self raising flour until it resembles breadcrumbs and then add in about 4tbsp of milk until you have a lovely doughy texture. Roll out the pasty into a nice big rectangle.

Now for the innards!

You will need
1.5lb of sausages (or use sausage meat.... my supermarket doesn't stock it all year round!)
3oz of stuffing mix made up as directed on the pack
A pinch of Paprika
1tsp dried thyme (dried earlier in the year via the microwave method!)
Optional - grated lemon zest.

Slice open your sausages and pop the meat in a bowl - I used some yummy Cumberland sausages that had added cayenne and black pepper. If you want a bit of a childish giggle just squeeze the sausages until the insides pop out. :)

Mix in the made-up stuffing and add the herbs and spices. Arrange in a long oblong in the centre of the pastry leaving a gap at either end. Fold the ends over to hold the mix in.

Cut the pastry either side of the sausage-meat outwards and diagonally into 1" strips. Then fold over, alternating to make a plaited effect. I added a hand cut pastry leaf in homage to my grandad who always did the same.

Brush a beaten egg over (check out how yellow 'proper' eggs are!) and pop in the oven at 200C for approx 45mins.

This is a pretty huge plait, enough to serve 8 or to have loads left over to eat cold the next day! It would make a yummy lunch!