A sausage roll is a savoury pastry snack, popular in current and former

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with " republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from th ...

nations, consisting of sausage meat wrapped in puffed pastry. Sausage rolls are sold at retail outlets and are also available from bakeries as a take-away food. A miniature version can be served as buffet or party food.

Composition

The basic composition of a sausage roll is sheets of puff pastry formed into tubes around

sausage A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders. ...

meat and glazed with egg or milk before being baked. They can be served either hot or cold. In the 19th century, they were made using shortcrust pastry instead of puff pastry. A vegetarian or vegan approximation of a sausage roll can be made in the same manner, using a meat substitute.

Sales

In the UK, the bakery chain Greggs sells around 2.5 million sausage rolls per week, or around 140 million per year.

History

The wrapping of meat or other foodstuffs into dough can be traced back to the Classical Greek or Roman eras. However sausage rolls in the modern sense of meat surrounded by rolled pastry, appear to have been conceived at the beginning of the 19th century in France. From the beginning, use was made of flaky pastry, which in turn originated with the Austrian croissant of the late 17th century. Early versions of the roll with pork as a filling proved popular in London during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

and it became identified as an English dish. On 20 September 1809, the ''Bury and Norwich Post'' mentions T. Ling, aged 75, (an industrious vendor of saloop, buns, and sausage rolls).

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

first mentions the food item in 1864 when William Johnstone, "

wholesale Wholesaling or distributing is the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers; to industrial, commercial, institutional or other professional business users; or to other wholesalers (wholesale businesses) and related subordinated services. I ...

pork pie manufacturer and sausage roll maker", was fined £15 (''2015: £''), under the Nuisances Removal Act (Amendment) Act 1863, for having on his premises a large quantity of meat unsound, unwholesome and unfit for food. In 1894, a theft case provided further insights into the

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

sausage roll production whereby the accused apprentice was taught to soak brown bread in

red ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produce ...

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quanti ...

, and

pepper Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...

to give the appearance of beef sausage for the filling.

National variants

Similar meat and pastry recipes include the Czech '' klobásník'', the Belgian ''worstenbroodje'', the Dutch ''saucijzenbroodje'', the German ''Münsterländer Wurstbrötchen'' and sausage bread in the United States. Hong Kong has developed its own style of sausage roll. Instead of having sausage meat wrapped in puff pastry like the traditional western style, the Hong Kong style "sausage bun" (Chinese: 腸仔包) consists of a sausage wrapped inside a soft milk bread style bun.

In popular culture

* The 1896

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which '' H.M.S. ...

operetta '' The Grand Duke'' features sausage rolls as a plot device, where conspirators recognise one another by eating sausage rolls. * LadBaby has had four number one Christmas singles in the British charts with sausage-roll-themed novelty cover versions of the songs " We Built This City", " I Love Rock 'n' Roll", " Don't Stop Believing" and "

Merry Christmas The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late November ...

References

External links

Sausage Roll recipe - BBC Food website

Sausage Roll recipe - taste.com.au
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