What is good food? Something that’s yummy and smells divine? Yes, but an exceptional dish also has to look nice, be attractively-presented and display the unique creative style of the cook.

What I am sharing today is one such exceptional savoury item that is a feast for both the eyes and the tastebuds. And the best part is that it is super easy to make. However, it is a labour of love, so rather time-consuming.

It is sausage sunflowers, made with just two items!

Paring my very favourite ingredient, puff pastry, with my new favourite, chicken sausages, I made sausage sunflowers. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? And it tastes delicious too!

As usual, I used store-bought puff pastry and readymade, skinless, chicken mini franks sausages. Both these products are easily available so why make them at home?

All you have to do is defrost the puff pastry, but do not bring it down to room temperature as then it will become too sticky and soft, which will get messy when you are trying to give it a shape. In case it gets too soft, keep it in the fridge for a few minutes.

Read the instructions of both the ingredients so that you use it accordingly. The sausages I used were precooked and were ready to eat after a light cooking in the oven that was part of this recipe. So let’s get started.

Ingredients

• 250g puff pastry

• 12 mini Franks sausages, or as per requirement

• 1 egg, beaten (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Cut the mini sausages into half, keep aside.

Lightly flour a working surface. Cut the puff pastry into a smaller piece that is easy to roll. If you have a large working area, you can roll the whole dough in one go.

Cut a thin strip from one end of the rolled dough, which should be about a centimetre or so thick. Now you need to cut strips that are about double the size of the half mini sausages. Place the sausage piece at one end, with the cut up side facing the corner.

Make about one inch cuts in the strip, up to the sausage’s height. With a fork, make one or two dents between each cut. With your index finger and thumb, pinch together the ends of each cut. Now roll the dough around the sausage, gently tugging the strip and pressing it when you are done, so that the layers do not come apart during baking.

Now gently join the ends of the dough at the bottom. To give a proper flower shape, form the cut up ends into curved open petals around the peeking rounded edge of the sausage. Coat the top with beaten egg and place on a baking tray covered with parchment paper.

Bake for 12-15 minutes and for a couple of minutes with the top grill on to give the top a nice light brown colour. Enjoy your sausage sunflowers warm with any sauce or ketchup of your choice.

These can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container and reheated to serve.

You can also assemble/shape these beforehand, store it in the fridge or freeze in an air-tight container, and bake it just before serving.

The writer Instagrams @the_experimentalcook

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 9th, 2021