Highland Sausage Rolls

One of my husband's pals is a great hunter and occasionally fills our freezer with venison. The first thing I do is make lots and lots of sausage rolls. Properly wrapped, they will last frozen for months. I make them in different sizes, so that they can be served as finger-food hors d'oeuvres as well as a main dish with chips and a nice vegetable.

• Ready In: 8 hrs 30 mins
• Serves: 6-16

Ingredients

• 10  ounces  venison (trimmed weight)
• 6  ounces  pork belly (trimmed weight)
• 2  ounces  pitted prunes
• 1  small onion
•  tea (the remains of a pot of tea)
• 3  tablespoons port wine
•  allspice, thyme,and/or worcester sauce,to taste
• 1  lb premade puff pastry
• 1  egg, beaten,to glaze

Directions

1. Mince the meats finely (if the butcher has not already done so), chop the onion very finely and mix together.
2. Season with a good grinding of pepper- but no salt- and some allspice, thyme and/or a few shakes of Worcester sauce.
3. Pour on the port and mix well, then cover and leave for several hours or overnight to allow the flavours to blend.
4. Cover the prunes with cold tea and leave to soak for several hours.
5. Season your sausagemeat mixture with salt and/or sage and roll it into a long, fat “link” sausage shape.
6. Roll the pastry out to a rectangle and lay the"sausage" down the length of it.
7. Lay the whole drained prunes on top of the meat.
8. Dampen one long edge of the pastry with beaten egg, roll up carefully and seal.
9. Alternatively you may like to enclose the sausage in a decorative pastry plait.
10. In this case, roll the pastry out to a square, lay the"sausage" down the centre and place the whole drained prunes on top.
11. Cut the pastry diagonally into ½-inch strips on either side of the meat.
12. Dampen the end of each pastry strip with beaten egg then fold the strips alternately from each side, over the meat to create a plait effect.
13. Seal the pastry ends.
14. Slide the pastry parcel on to a damp baking sheet and glaze the top.
15. If you have made a sausage roll, decorate it with pastry leaves and make one or two steam slits in the top of the pastry.
16. Bake at 425F/220C/gas mark 4 for a further 25 minutes or so.