We Upgraded the Greggs Sausage Roll

0:00 Oh wow.

0:01 They are churning them out.

0:02 Hi there.

0:03 Can I order sausage rolls, please?

0:06 Thank you so much.

0:07 Have a lovely day.

0:08 They sell 1 million of these a day.

0:10 One is sold every 5 seconds.

0:12 The Greggs sausage roll.

0:14 My guilty pleasure.

0:15 I think [music] the Greggs sausage roll has the most important

0:19 cultural significance and food place in British society [music] as a whole.

0:24 Bold statement.

0:25 You know what they say?

0:26 Sausage roll a day keeps the doctor away.

0:28 I think we can do better.

0:30 Let's get back to Father and figure it out.

0:34 Do not ruin the beloved sausage roll.

0:37 [music] We're going to take the bits that everyone loves

0:39 and we are going to make our ultimate version.

0:41 Don't eat any more of these, all right?

0:42 We've got another one coming up.

0:44 A good sausage roll starts with a good sausage.

0:48 Something funny about that.

0:50 You want to buy the best quality sausage you can.

0:54 I like a really good quality meaty fatty sausage.

0:57 In the war, when meat was rationed,

0:59 the sausage used to get filled with lots of other other ingredients.

1:02 As they were cooking, the water would expand and they would burst.

1:06 Hence the name banger.

1:07 [music] Next we can get on with flavoring the sausage meat up slightly.

1:11 So I'm going to take my little pan.

1:12 I'm going to take one lovely banana shallot.

1:15 So I'm just going to finely chop this shallot

1:16 and we're going to sweat it down in some duck fat.

1:20 Now the duck fat is there for flavor and it is obviously optional.

1:22 You could use butter, you could use any any sort of fat, really.

1:26 Olive oil, if you want to do that.

1:28 So we're going to put that on a very low heat.

1:30 You could use onion, you could use red onion,

1:31 you could use leek, you could use whatever you want.

1:33 Shallots always have much nicer flavor, sweeter flavor, slightly more elegant.

1:37 I'm looking to blow little Murray's socks off.

1:39 Doesn't take much.

1:40 So you might ask, why have I bought in sausages and taken

1:43 them out of the skin instead of just buying sausage meat?

1:45 You're a professional chef.

1:45 We wanted to do it in a similar way as you could do at home.

1:48 So buying so buy a good quality

1:50 sausage from your butcher or from the supermarket,

1:52 taking them out and then now having a plain

1:55 sausage means you can then flavor it in any way, shape, or form you think.

1:58 Then you can develop the flavor and you can tweak it.

2:01 But equally, you could start with a flavored

2:02 sausage and still build on that flavor.

2:04 That's There's no There's no rules with this.

2:06 Like with anything, it's just all about building the levels and just tasting it.

2:09 You want to cook out all that liquid so that everything

2:11 in the sausage is nice and dry and it's not going

2:13 to add any extra steam cuz the steam is also going

2:16 to affect the pastry slightly when we cook in the sausage roll.

2:19 And then we've got a little bit of sage,

2:21 which I'm just going to finely chiffonade up and add it to our sausages as well.

2:25 You could also add, you know, other herbs in at this stage.

2:28 You can add tarragon, you can add thyme, you can add rosemary.

2:31 I'm going to add the sage raw straight to the sausage meat.

2:35 Keep that nice aroma, that nice fragrant.

2:37 I'm going to add a little touch of salt in now, just a little bit.

2:40 So I've got some pepper, touch of five spice,

2:42 some garlic powder, going to go in with some fennel seeds.

2:44 I'm just going to put those into my shallots just to open up the aroma.

2:48 Paprika as well.

2:49 So adding that into the sausage meat,

2:50 little hit of smokiness, tiny bit of background heat.

2:52 Just going to mix that together.

2:54 So you may think that the five spice is a bit of a random addition there,

2:58 but five spice has been very traditional sort

2:59 of used in meat pies back in the Victorian ages.

3:02 So that's the reason that that's in there.

3:04 Obviously got the aroma from the fennel, the aroma from the sage,

3:07 then you've got just the the classic seasonings of paprika,

3:09 garlic powder, and pepper,

3:11 which is going to add a really good background flavor.

3:13 Some slightly stale bread which we're just going to break up

3:16 into the sausage meat and that's going to help absorb all

3:18 that fat and absorb the fat of the sausage as well

3:21 and the duck fat and it will soak into one beautiful meat mixture.

3:25 So I'm just going to finely chop it and it

3:27 will break up through the meat as we're mixing it anyway.

3:29 So my shallots are now confit.

3:31 So you see that [music] beautiful smell coming off there is amazing.

3:35 I'm going to add that to my sausage meat.

3:37 It doesn't matter if it's a little bit warm.

3:38 One little tip which I definitely recommend you do

3:40 is we're going to taste some of this meat.

3:42 We're going to What we're going to do is effectively

3:43 going to cook a small little patty to check the seasoning.

3:46 And that way you can cook it, taste it,

3:48 and then you can see what the final product is going to taste like

3:50 and adjust the seasoning now cuz you don't want to go through all this effort,

3:53 make the pastry, roll it out, cook it, bake it,

3:55 and then eat it and you're like, "Oh need a bit more salt." Sorry for swearing.

3:59 Second tip, mince can get quite sticky.

4:01 Very, very lightly, just a little bit of water in your hands,

4:03 and if you do that, then the meat won't stick to your hands.

4:07 So, I'm just going to make a small little patty,

4:09 place it into a nonstick pan, give our little pork patty a try.

4:13 Not bad.

4:14 Fennel seed is lovely, lovely and bouncy like a sausage roll, which is key.

4:18 You don't want it to taste like like a slab of pork.

4:20 You want it to have that like fatty like melt in your mouth texture.

4:24 So, fraction more.

4:25 Going to add a touch more pepper, just cuz you get different types of heat.

4:29 Uh pepper has it like a nice sort of more of a floral heat.

4:32 Tiny bit more fennel.

4:34 Tiny bit more garlic powder.

4:35 There we have it.

4:36 That's good to go now.

4:37 Just going to give that little mix,

4:38 and then that is ready to fill our sausage rolls later.

4:41 So, effectively, just a really good past sausage patty recipe as well.

4:44 So, you've seen the sausage, now it's time for the roll.

4:47 The easiest thing, and to be honest, if I was doing this at home,

4:49 I would just go to the shop and buy a sheet of puff pastry.

4:52 However, this is a cooking channel, so we are going to make a rough puff pastry.

4:57 So, we've got our flour.

4:58 We're going to place that into our bowl.

5:00 So, this is strong white bread flour.

5:02 [music] And the next stage we're going to do is we're going to add our butter.

5:04 Puff pastry is like the crème de la crème.

5:07 That's the premium.

5:09 But, very difficult to make at home, cuz it involves a lot of labor,

5:12 a lot of folding, a lot of rolling.

5:14 So, what we're going to be making is a rough puff,

5:16 which effectively takes the principles of puff pastry,

5:19 but makes it much more achievable and much simpler to follow at home.

5:23 We do use it in restaurants as well.

5:24 It's not just an at home recipe.

5:26 We're going to add a little pinch of salt to our flour,

5:29 and then we're going to grate the butter into our flour,

5:31 and this is going to speed up the process.

5:33 It's going to make it easier to incorporate, [music] and it looks cool.

5:36 The key stage of this is trying to keep everything cold.

5:38 So, our butter's just come out of the fridge.

5:39 Going to work nice and fast.

5:41 So, obviously, what we're trying to do here

5:42 is keep the layers of butter in the flour, so we get the rise as it cooks.

5:45 That's the whole point of rough puff and puff pastry.

5:49 So, you could do this in a food processor.

5:50 You could do this by dicing up the butter

5:53 and then rubbing it in, which is the classic method.

5:55 But, what that does, obviously,

5:57 heats up the butter as you would as you're doing it and melts the butter.

6:00 And what we're trying to do is get

6:01 distinct layers between the flour and the butter.

6:03 We're going to take a spoon and we're just

6:04 going to mix the butter and the flour together.

6:05 I'm using a spoon as obviously my my hands are going to hold

6:08 a lot of heat and they're going to melt the butter quickly.

6:10 So, we want to move fast at this point.

6:12 Just mixing it together.

6:13 It's a real good code this to being

6:15 of getting this pastry done is by grating the butter.

6:18 It's a real lifesaver.

6:19 Now, once that's all incorporated, next we're going to add our water.

6:22 The water goes in.

6:23 Bring this together as it forms a light ball.

6:26 So, we're going to pull out our dough onto the bench

6:29 and we're going to knead this for as short a time as possible.

6:32 Just literally bring it together cuz you don't want to melt the butter.

6:34 Wrap that in cling film and pop it in the fridge to cool.

6:37 I would be getting your pastry done, ideally, the day before.

6:39 Or at least first thing.

6:40 You really want to leave it to cool for longer the better, really.

6:43 If you can get it done a day before, great.

6:45 Or at least a couple of hours.

6:47 The next thing we're going to add to our sausage roll,

6:48 just to level it up, is we're going to make some beer caramelized shallot.

6:52 So, we're going to add a little layer of sweetness to our sausage roll.

6:56 We're going to finely slice them.

6:57 We're going to sweat them down in a touch of butter.

7:00 And when we tasted the Greggs sausage roll,

7:01 like I felt that it's it's lovely, but it's one-dimensional.

7:04 So, for our ultimate sausage roll, I feel like, you know,

7:07 a little bit of sweetness, a little bit of bitterness from the beer,

7:09 uh sort of lovely umami caramelization you can get from caramelizing shallots,

7:13 would add a really nice dimension.

7:15 To uh add a little bit of thyme as well.

7:17 Just let me strip that off the stem.

7:19 Tiny bit of salt, as always, is going to help them break down a little bit.

7:22 So, while that's going, I'm going to start to roll out my pastry.

7:25 Effectively, add the rough puff element to the pastry.

7:29 So, I'm just going to flour my board a little bit,

7:30 and flour the top of the pastry, rub that in a little bit.

7:33 Just compress the dough nicely so it's in the roughly the right shape.

7:36 If you watched one of our previous videos,

7:37 we're going to do the ridging technique again for this pastry.

7:39 We want to move quickly and confidently so to avoid the butter melting too much.

7:44 And if it gets starts to get a bit

7:45 stickier cuz obviously there's a lot of butter in here,

7:47 then we can just re-flour the surface nicely, as Jamie does.

7:52 Push the sides down just to keep that nice shape.

7:54 Okay, so we're looking to grow this by three times.

7:57 That's what we started with roughly, so we're almost there.

7:59 And what we're going to do here is we're

8:00 going to fold the top down into the center,

8:04 and then we're going to fold this half back over, creating a nice layer like so.

8:10 And then we're just going to turn that 90°.

8:13 Give it a little flouring.

8:15 And then we're going to raise the ridge again,

8:17 looking to grow it again by three times.

8:19 Almost there.

8:20 Then just one final little roll.

8:22 So, as you can now see, we've got these lovely streaks of butter.

8:25 Exactly what we're looking for.

8:27 The butter hasn't melted in.

8:28 And then we're just going to do that one final fold.

8:30 Exactly the same on this side.

8:32 Fold it back onto itself, and then just compress that together nicely.

8:35 One final just press to make sure it's all combined.

8:38 That's my block of rough puff pastry that we've now made.

8:40 So, now I'm just going to place that, wrap it nicely,

8:44 pop it back into the fridge for 20 minutes before we use it.

8:48 So, our shallots have now been caramelizing, and they're now about ready.

8:51 The fat's separated.

8:52 It's starting to get a little bit color on.

8:54 So, I'm now going to turn up the heat and add my ale.

8:56 We're going to reduce that down to a nice glaze,

8:58 where I want really nice and sticky, stirring it regularly.

9:00 A bit of dark muscovado sugar for color and flavor,

9:04 and also a touch of red wine vinegar.

9:05 Then we're going to cook down this liquid again,

9:07 cuz we want it to be nice and thick,

9:08 cuz otherwise it will make the pastry soggy.

9:10 Once our shallots are all cooked down, we're going to take them out into a tray,

9:13 [clears throat] just spreading it out so it cools down quickly.

9:16 Cuz if you did this the day before,

9:17 you could just put it chuck in a container and put it chuck it in the fridge.

9:19 The steam from the uh shallots, if I put them on hot,

9:22 would affect the rising of the pastry.

9:24 So, now I'm going to take my pastry out the fridge.

9:27 But now we're going to start to get ready to make the sausage rolls.

9:30 So, I'm going to take my block of pastry.

9:32 I'm going to remove just under a quarter of the pastry.

9:37 I'm going to that aside for making the lattice.

9:39 Pop that in the fridge for now.

9:41 Rolling out my pastry.

9:42 Again, just going to focus on getting that nice shape.

9:45 Ridging to start with.

9:47 So, we're looking to get 24 cm by 24 cm.

9:51 So, roughly 24 is going to be about there.

9:54 Just going to square this off nicely.

9:56 So, very minimal wastage there.

9:57 And then, in theory, I should be able to cut this out four perfect pieces.

10:01 Might seem a bit of a faff.

10:02 I mean, if you don't if you're not too

10:03 bothered about the the exact sort of perfect squares,

10:07 then you can just do it by eye.

10:08 It's not a problem at all.

10:11 But, we've come this far, so I thought we'd go all the way.

10:13 Next thing is going to get my hands wet, and I'm going to get my sausage meat.

10:18 And again, I'm just going to split this equally into four.

10:19 So, again, what we're going to do is

10:20 we're going to take the first sheet of pastry.

10:23 I'm actually going to put these back in the fridge so they stay nice and cold.

10:25 Little bit of flour, just so nothing sticks.

10:27 Small amount of shallot on top of the pastry.

10:30 Not going too close to the edges.

10:33 So, you're going to spread the whole layer apart from the very end,

10:36 which is going to be our seal across here.

10:38 So, I'm going to get the egg wash across that seal.

10:41 Touch of water on my hand.

10:42 Fondle your meat [music] into a rough sausage shape.

10:46 I'm going to try to leave about a centimeter or so on the each on each end.

10:50 And then, we're going to lift up the pastry and roll it over.

10:54 Rolling it nice and tight.

10:56 And then, using that seal, tucking it under.

10:59 And you should be able to finish just like that.

11:02 Follow the process with the other remaining three sheets of pastry.

11:06 Some of them just tidying up ever so slightly.

11:09 Just making sure they all look as nice as possible.

11:12 I'll leave these in the fridge.

11:13 Now, I've got my reserve pastry to start our lattice.

11:15 Tiny bit of flour on the board.

11:18 Little bit of finesse, little bit of decoration on the top.

11:20 Little bit of fun.

11:21 We're going to show you how to make it at home without a lattice cutter.

11:24 So, I've got my four sheets of lattice.

11:26 I'm just going to pop this in the fridge to cool down.

11:28 So, once the pastry is cooled down, I'm just you're to give it another little

11:31 roll just to make sure it's all looking good,

11:33 nice and nice and thin at this stage.

11:36 So, using a knife, we're going to do 2 cm

11:38 slits with a rough half cm gap in between, like so.

11:43 And then with the next line across,

11:45 we're going to do where the where you didn't score.

11:48 So, it's almost like alternating between.

11:50 Hopefully, that makes sense.

11:51 It sounds more complicated than it is.

11:53 I'm just going to pull them all open, pull out my first sausage roll.

11:56 Speaking of egg wash,

11:57 going to brush that over the top of the sausage roll just so it sticks.

12:00 Layer over and just stick it all the way around the outside.

12:03 Like so.

12:04 I'm going to place that back into the fridge.

12:06 I will I'll do the glazing of the top once we've done all of them.

12:09 Just popped our sausage rolls into the freezer for 5

12:11 10 minutes just to firm up slightly before we bake them.

12:14 And I'm going to place the heavy bottom tray into the oven.

12:17 Um any tray you've got at home will work as fine.

12:19 We just want to get it hot.

12:21 So, we're going to set the oven to 200°,

12:23 get the tray preheated so you can place the sausage rolls

12:25 on top and it's going to start instantly cooking from underneath.

12:30 Okay, so here's our little sausage wellingtons.

12:33 Final glazing of egg wash.

12:35 We're going to go with a couple of fennel seeds,

12:36 nice little sprinkling of salt over the top as well.

12:38 I always like a little bit of salt on top of my pastry.

12:40 I think it has a nice little crunch.

12:41 Finally, just a couple of onion seeds as well.

12:43 Cuz we're going to remove our preheated tray,

12:46 call in an assistant to give you a quick lift with the pastry,

12:50 and then uh we're just going to place that directly into the oven.

12:53 So, 200°, 10 minutes before we drop it down

12:55 to 180 to finish until the internal temperature of 68.

12:59 So, after about 25 minutes, this what you should be left with.

13:03 So, I'm just going to remove them onto a wire rack just so

13:08 that the the air flows around the bottom so you don't get a soggy bottom.

13:11 But that pastry is feeling so crisp.

13:13 You want to rest them for a little bit.

13:14 You still want them to be served hot,

13:16 but you want to let them let the juices sort of relax a little bit.

13:19 We're going to serve this with a little bit of our Dallow Sriracha.

13:23 Where did you spring from?

13:25 Hey, when sausage rolls are involved Oh!

13:29 Oh, winner.

13:30 So, you got a layer of caramelized onions on the outside.

13:32 [music] The question is is it better than the OG?

13:37 It looks better.

13:38 So, I think we've tried to keep all of the aspects of the Greggs sausage roll.

13:41 It's fairly clean, not too much going on.

13:44 Sausage in the middle, pastry's baked nicely.

13:47 Actually, it kind of looks still pretty similar.

13:49 Obviously, you know, we'd like to think it's obviously going to be

13:51 better because it's been been made, taken time over it.

13:54 We've used a lot of chef's tips in there and skills.

13:56 [music] Oh.

13:58 Oh, that is crispy.

13:59 The pastry is so crisp.

14:00 Yeah, the pastry's amazing.

14:02 It's got like a nice little sticky layer.

14:05 It really stayed around the outside nicely.

14:07 When someone does a gourmet sausage roll, they always make the meat too big.

14:11 This is good cuz it's it's just as smashable as a Greggs sausage roll.

14:15 After showing that we can replicate it and make it better,

14:17 make it more cheffy and achievable at home,

14:21 safe to say we're not going to be eating this anymore.

14:26 Oh.

14:28 Thank you and good night.