Today I am going to make something mouth-watering that just requires careful assembling rather than a lengthy process of cooking. It’s sausage flowers!

Well, that’s what I am calling it as there are variations of its name in the different recipes I came across and I liked none of those, and I didn’t follow any of them faithfully too. So I guess I deserve to name this recipe too.

I used fully cooked jumbo frank sausages, made of chicken, in jalapeño peppers and cheese flavour. These are available everywhere. But if you are using sausages that are not fully cooked, you will have to cook them according to the instructions for it. Since I was going to bake them in the oven, I did not shallow fry or boil it for a minute or two as the instructions on the box stated.

It was the first time I was using sausages for a recipe and was nervous, but I shouldn’t have been — they were divine and delicious. The smoky seasoned flavour of the sausages was too good and it all finished in minutes!

Ingredients

• 500g puff pastry

• Jumbo sausages (chicken, fully cooked)

• ½ cup shredded cheese

• 1/2 cup tomato ketchup

Method

Preheat oven at 180 degrees Centigrade.

Defrost both the sausages and puff pastry. The amount of the ingredients depend on how many you need to make so you can increase or decrease accordingly, and the leftover sausages or puff pastry can easily be frozen again.

Flour a rolling board lightly and roll the puff pastry until you have a sheet that is about a quarter of an inch thick. You can keep it as thick as you want, depending on whether you like a thick pastry layer or a thin one. I like to go for medium thickness and as I had to shape the puff pastry, I didn’t keep it very thick to make sure it doesn’t fluff up to spoil the look upon baking.

Make cuts in the sausages carefully, about an inch or less apart, and leave a bit of it attached at the bottom since we want the sausage to remain in one whole piece. Take a toothpick and break it into two or three pieces. Insert the toothpick at one end and join the other end by inserting the remaining end of the toothpick. It will form a ring. While handling, there is a chance that the sausage might break, but it really doesn’t matter for you can just place it close to the next piece when folding the pastry.

Now cut a circle of the puff pastry dough large than the sausage ring that you have. Gently with your fingers, fold the extra dough at the edges to cover the sausages and using the back of a spoon, inset the dough between the gaps of the sausage pieces.

Pour some ketchup and then some cheese in the centre. Ask and adult to put it in the oven for you and bake until it is light to medium brown all over. When I used the top grill of the oven first, it cooked faster and I later turned on the bottom grill for about five to eight minutes and the lower part was done perfectly. Serve and enjoy it hot!

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 26th, 2020