Chorizo Feta Braid
I buy sausages freely without thought for when or how they’ll come into play. Also, I often have frozen puff pastry to hand as it gets me halfway to a meal more often than not.
This recipe uses a couple of raw/uncured chorizo that had been hanging around in my freezer for a few months without purpose. Combined with some feta in the fridge that was approaching its end date and I brewed a plan.
Of course, the sausage and cheese particulars are just a starting point:black pudding and cheddar, pork & fennel with pecorino, Bratwurst & gruyere.
ingredients
- 1/2 onion, diced
- 1 stick celery, diced
- 240g raw/uncured chorizo sausage, skins removed
- 125g feta
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts
- 1/2 apple, grated
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 2/3 cup breadcrumbs
- 1 egg, separated
- 375g puff pastry
Fry off the diced onion and celery in a splash of oil over a medium heat. Once translucent, remove from the pan and allow to cool.
Combine the sausage meat, feta, nuts, apple, oregano, breadcrumbs, egg white with the cooled onion and celery mix. Using your hands mix it together well. It should come together as one cohesive mixture without being too dry or too wet. A Goldilocks blend if you like.
At this point, you can fry off a little of the mix to check the taste as your sausages may not be as seasoned as mine. It’s a good rule of thumb as you can fix the flavour now but not after it’s cooked.
Mound the sausage mix upon the middle third of your defrosted pastry leaving a small gap top and bottom. Either side of the filling, make cuts through the pastry on a diagonal about 1.5cm wide. You should have an even number of cuts along each side.
Fold up one end piece of the pastry onto the sausge mix then alternately lay each side strip across the top, tucking in as you go. Before you come to the last few strips, tuck in the other end of the pastry to make it all neat.
Lightly break up the egg yolk with a fork and brush liberally across the pastry, ensuring to get in all the crevices. A like to sprinkle with some extra herbage for looks, though sesame seeds work well too.
Place in a 200 degree Celsius oven for 25-30 minutes, rotating the pastry back to front after 20 minutes to ensure it gets even browning. I’ve even been known to flip the lot over so the base gets fully cooked as well, though it does crush the top layers somewhat. I’ll trade this off for fully cooked bottom.
