What's not to love about a sausage roll? It can be enjoyed with a coffee in a cafe (Birds), in a pub with a pint (the King Billy) or on the hop (Greggs).
The traditional filling is pork sausage meat but there's all sorts of variations out there, from pheasant to beef and chorizo, veggie cheese and Marmite or vegan bang bang cauliflower. Whatever your filling, I'm sure we can all agree that it's a darn good snack.
However, the humble sausage roll doesn't get the attention it fully deserves which is why there's a competition to find the best in the country. Nottinghamshire pub chef Dan Coles is hoping to do the county proud with his twist on a classic.
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Before the judges at the Great Sausage Roll Off get a chance to taste it, I was invited along to try it for myself. That glorious smell of freshly-baked pastry greets me as soon I walk into the kitchen. The sausage roll is a mighty fine specimen, it's chunky and the good-looking golden pastry is filled to the brim.
Dan is the head chef at The Nelson in Burton Joyce, which always has sausage rolls on the bar as a snack. He hasn't veered too far from a traditional take but he has elevated it. Pork sausage meat is wrapped around slow-cooked pork belly. Colston Bassett Stilton and Bramley apple have been added to give it a unique Nottinghamshire flavour.
Fresh from the oven it's glazed with crab apple jelly, made with fruit donated by one of the pub's customers, which acts as the glue for homemade pork scratchings. It looks a beauty, all golden and hearty - much more appealing that the typical sausage roll you'll find in a cafe or supermarket. And it's quite a handful, so it's best to slice it.
The first bite is an assault on the senses, in a good way. I've already mentioned the aroma and the sight, but the crunch from the shards of scratchings reverberates in my ears. All at once I'm hit by big flavours.
I don't like pork scratchings, but these tiny fragments are quite something - crisp but not so hard that you fear breaking a tooth.
The pastry is flaky but not that flaky that more ends up on the plate than in your mouth. Inside is packed to the rafters with herby sausage meat, which envelopes the sweet-tasting 12-hour slow cooked pork belly. A smack of blue cheese and flecks of Bramley apple remind you that this is pure Nottinghamshire. You can almost hear it whisper "ey up mi duck".
For me it's love at first bite but it depends on what the judges think at the competition at the Red Lion pub in Barnes, south west London, on February 8. Dan will have 40 minutes to roll out the pastry, fill it and bake his entry.
He said: "For me it was championing all things local, so Bramley apples from Southwell, Colston Bassett Stilton and pork from Owen Taylor (butchers) in Derbyshire.
"I don't know how I'll get on but it's all for charity, so it's a good cause anyway. I'd like to think we'll do alright."
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