Classic Sausage Rolls

The smell arrives before the sausage rolls do. Butter and sage and something deeply savoury drifting through the kitchen, and whoever is in the house will appear at the oven door within minutes, asking when they'll be ready. This is perhaps the most reliable fact in British baking.

A sausage roll is not a complicated thing. Good pork, a few herbs, a sheet of pastry, and an egg to make it shine. The craft is in the seasoning of the meat and the quality of the pastry, and in knowing that the oven needs to be properly hot so the pastry puffs and the fat renders and everything comes out golden and crackled and impossible to eat just one of. I've never managed fewer than three, standing at the counter, burning the roof of my mouth because I couldn't wait.

They belong at Christmas, obviously. On picnic blankets in summer. At any gathering where people are standing around with a drink in one hand and nothing in the other. But they also belong on a Tuesday, warm from the oven, with a smear of mustard and a cup of tea. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: sausage rolls, Tuesday, no occasion, didn't matter. The best food rarely needs a reason.

A recipe is a conversation, not a contract. If you want more sage, add more sage. If you like a hit of chilli, a pinch of flake won't hurt. The mustard in the filling is my addition, not traditional, but it lifts the pork without announcing itself. Trust your hands and your nose. Season and taste. Then taste again.