Sausage and Apple Plait

October. The apples on the tree at the bottom of the garden have come in all at once, as they always do, more than anyone can eat, and the kitchen smells of them: sweet, cidery, faintly floral. This is the week I make this plait.

It's a simple thing. Good sausage meat, a sharp apple diced small, some sage from the pot by the back door. You lay it down the middle of a sheet of puff pastry, braid the edges over, brush the top with egg, and let the oven do the rest. Half an hour later the pastry is burnished and puffed and the filling has gone sticky and savoury with pockets of soft, sweet apple running through it. It slices cleanly. It travels well. It feeds a crowd without you having to stand in the kitchen all afternoon.

I've taken this to more picnics and suppers than I can count. It arrives whole, gets put on a board, and somebody cuts the first slice before you've even taken your coat off. That's the mark of something worth making. There are few better feelings than watching people eat something you've carried in from the car, still slightly warm, wrapped in a tea towel.

A recipe is a conversation, not a contract. If you haven't got sage, use thyme. If the apple is a Granny Smith instead of a Cox, that's fine. A little more mustard if you like heat. Your kitchen, your rules. We're only making dinner.