Bacon Wrapped Herbed Sausagemeat Stuffing Roll (can be gluten free)

A moist and delicious way to have your stuffing with roast dinners, with a tasty bacon wrapping.

This is really delicious served with roast dinners such as roast chicken, turkey, guinea fowl or pork Even better, to make life easy, you can even prepare this a day or two in advance so you have less to do on the day! I started making stuffing in a roll like this (too many) years ago, and it was so successful I've carried on, and thought I'd blog it now for posterity (and everyone else to enjoy)!

I do like a bit of stuffing, and/or a couple of 'pigs in blankets' with roast poultry or pork, but I must confess that sometimes my pigs in blankets might get a little too cosy in the oven (I get easily distracted and sometimes they are a little charred if I forget about them for ten minutes)! Wrapping the sausagemeat stuffing in bacon and cooking it this way means that you get all the flavours of pigs in blankets, and stuffing, and you don't need to worry so much about them in the oven, as it's more forgiving and turns out nice and moist inside.


I make this gluten free now, so my daughter can eat it, but of course you just use ordinary breadcrumbs and sausagemeat if you don't need to cook gluten free (which is how I used to make this). Quantities of breadcrumbs whether gluten free or not make no difference to the recipe. Have a go, it's really tasty! What's more you can mix up the herbs, and/or add chopped dried fruit / nuts / chestnuts etc. to ring the changes.

Serves eight, 318 calories per serving.

Ingredients

[Calories in square brackets]

• 500g quality meaty pork sausages / sausagemeat (e.g. Toulouse style - calories for Sainsbury's TTD Toulouse sausages - check gluten free if necessary) [1,770]
• 12-14 rashers of  streaky bacon (I like to use smoked, pancetta style streaky bacon, e.g. Sainsbury's, calories for pancetta style) [417]
• 1 onion, finely chopped [42]
• 1/2 tbsp oil, plus extra for greasing [62]
• 80g fresh white breadcrumbs, about 2 slices (gluten free bread works fine, e.g. Schar) [191]
• 8 sage leaves, finely chopped [4]
• 4 sprigs thyme, leaves stripped [2]
• 1 eating apple, peeled and coarsely grated [53]
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper [2]

Method

1. Fry the onion in the oil, until softened and just starting to lightly colour. 

2. If using sausages, remove and discard the skins (I find it easiest to cut from top to bottom on one side with a small pair of sharp scissors, then just remove the skin like a banana skin). 

3. Mix together the breadcrumbs, herbs, fried onion, grated apple, plenty of pepper, salt to taste and sausagemeat (this is a good time to have food safe gloves, as its easiest to mix by hand!).

4. Take a sheet of foil, oil lightly with a brush, season with freshly ground black pepper if you like, and place the bacon slices on it (try to get the fat sides on the outside / sheet if possible), just slightly overlapping each other. When you have placed them all on the sheet, they should make a rectangle about 30cm wide - if it's much shorter, add on a few more rashers of bacon to make it up so that your roll isn't too fat.

5. Put the stuffing mix in a rough log shape at the bottom of the bacon slices nearest to you, and roll it up using the foil to help you shape it into a neat roll.

6. Wrap the foil around the roll, and fold up the ends so it is sealed up. Place on a baking tray, seam side up.

7. Cook in a pre-heated oven at Gas mark 6 for 45 minutes wrapped in foil on an oven tray, then unwrap, pour off the juices, and cook for a further 15 minutes to brown the outside. Check that the middle of the stuffing roll is cooked thoroughly (if you have a temperature probe, it needs to reach 75C). 

8. Allow to rest for 10 minutes or so, before slicing with a sharp knife and serving. Enjoy!

Notes

You could add all sorts of additional ingredients to this basic stuffing mix to pimp it up. For example, to have with pork, you could add chopped dried apricots, figs or prunes, and / or walnuts and chunks of blue cheese. For a festive twist, add a pack of cranberries, and / or chopped chestnuts or pistachios to the stuffing mix.