Sausage rolls are one of our favourite things. It’s the puff pastry. Whether you fill it with beef, or chicken, or sweet potato and beans, puff pastry is homey and leaves you satisfied. Our diet has increasingly become vegetarian, so the sweet potato and bean variety are a great option when you want the puff pastry hit but not the beef or chicken.
The difference with making vegetarian sausage rolls is you have to pre-cook the sweet potato before adding it to the rest of the ingredients. When you’re used to throwing everything in the bowl, mixing it together and dividing it between the pastry sheets, pre-cooking can seem like a bit of a bother. After all, sausage rolls are a 20 minute dinner option (not including the baking). But it’s not all doom and gloom.
Enter the trusty microwave. I only use a microwave to heat the plates before serving, and melting butter. However, it has proved a very quick way to cook sweet potato. Simply pierce the sweet potato a few times around all sides and cook for 10 minutes, rotating it half way through. The sweet potato will be come away from the skin really easily and be cooked just right for mashing. If microwaving isn’t your thing, then you can steam or boil the sweet potato instead.
To char the capsicum you can place it over the flame of a gas cook top and rotate it to blacken all sides. Once the charring is achieved, place the capsicum in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap for 10 minutes, then peel and chop. The other, and easier option, is to cut the capsicum in half, lightly coat it with olive oil, place on a baking tray cut side down, and bake for 20 minutes or until the skin lightly chars and comes away from the flash. Then all you have to do is peel and chop. Make sure you leave it to cool for a bit or you’ll burn your finger when peeling it.
Although these are made with orange sweet potato, you could substitute it with pumpkin. For that matter you could also swap out the red kidney beans for chickpeas. Indeed, use your imagination and you could use any vegetable/ bean combination that takes your fancy.
Served with a salad and a dollop of tomato chutney, these sausage rolls are delicious. Enjoy!
- 600 grams orange sweet potato (leave whole if microwaving, chop into chunks if boiling or steaming)
- 1 x 400 gram tin red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 red capsicum, roasted and cut into squares
- 150 grams feta, roughly crumbled
- 3 spring onions, sliced
- ½ cup coriander leaves, roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
- 3 sheets store bought puff pastry
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
- tomato chutney
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius and line a large baking tray with baking paper.
- Char the capsicum over the flame of a gas cook top; or lightly coat in olive oil and place on a baking tray in the oven for 20 minutes or until the skin lightly chars and comes away from the flash. Peel and chop into squares.
- Boil, steam or microwave the sweet potato until tender. Once cooked, roughly mash in a large bowl.
- Add the beans, capsicum, spring onions, coriander leaves, ground cumin and chilli. Mix together and season with salt. Add the feta and mis lightly so that the cheese doesn't break up too much.
- Lay out the sheets of puff pasty and cut in half. Divide the mixture between the 6 halves of pastry, spreading the mixture along one side of each sheet of pastry. Roll up to enclose.
- Place roll, seam side down on the baking tray. Brush with the beaten egg mixture and sprinkle with cumin seeds.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and puffed. Cut each roll in half and serve with tomato chutney
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