Spiced lamb & pistachio rolls with spiced pastry

I am a huge fan of sausage rolls. With a well-flavoured filling and light, melt-in-the-mouth pastry, they never fail to give me a feeling of total satisfaction when eating them!

Spiced lamb & pistachio rolls

I’ve been making these Indian-style lamb sausage rolls for many years in various guises and love to make a batch when I fancy a slightly different type of sausage roll.

A well-flavoured pastry

spiced rough-puff pastry ready to use

The rough-puff pastry here uses turmeric, cumin and garam masala; the warming flavour of these spices goes so well with the spiced lamb filling.

However, if you don’t want to make the pastry you can use about 500g bought puff pastry: these sausage rolls will still taste great.

Tweak as you wish!

Spiced lamb and pistachio rolls

With a bake such as this, there are so many things that can be added for personal taste:

• I sometimes use a tablespoon or so of curry powder in the pastry instead of the cumin, garam masala and turmeric
• Instead of mango chutney in the filling I add 1-2 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses, lime pickle or aubergine pickle.

Spiced lamb in a turmeric and curry powder rough-puff pastry

Recipe: spiced lamb & pistachio rolls with spiced pastry – makes about 24

spiced lamb & pistachio rolls

For the spiced rough-puff pastry

• 250g strong plain flour
• 1 rounded teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 tablespoon garam masala
• 2 teaspoons cumin powder
• 5g fine sea salt
• 200g unsalted butter, chilled and roughly cubed
• 140-150ml cold water

 For the filling

• 500g minced lamb (around 10-15% fat)
• 100g good quality sausagemeat
• 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 medium onion, peeled and very finely chopped or grated
• 3 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 large egg, beaten
• small handful of fresh coriander, leaves and stalks, finely chopped (about 2 tablespoons when chopped)
• small handful of fresh mint leaves, finely chopped (about 2 tablespoons when chopped)
• about 80g dried apricots, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon mango chutney, plus a little extra for brushing over the pastry
• 60g pistachios, roughly chopped

To finish:

• a little beaten egg
• black onion seeds or poppy seeds

a filling packed with goodies!

(1) Make the pastry: please refer to my post on rough-puff pastry here, which has full instructions and diagrams for each stage. The only difference is the spices: just mix them with the flour at the start and proceed as in the recipe. Wrap in clingfilm and chill until needed

(2) Make up the filling: mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, stirring well to incorporate. Cover with cling film and chill until needed. You can chill the filling overnight to allow the flavours to develop or use it straight away. You can also fry off a little of the filling in a pan to taste, and adjust the flavours/seasoning if you feel this is needed.

(3) Make up the rolls: pre-heat the oven to 190°C (fan). Cut the pastry in half and roll out each piece to a long, thin rectangle. Brush a little mango chutney down the centre of each strip and spoon over the filling.

ready to roll up

(4) Brush a little egg along the long edge of each strip and bring the pastry up and over the filling, pushing gently to seal. If necessary, you can gently stretch the pastry over the meat to reach.

ready to trim and cut

(5) Trim along the length of each roll and brush the beaten egg liberally all over the surface. Cut into individual rolls to the preferred size: I tend to go for between one and two inches.

ready to bake

(6) Sprinkle over poppy seeds or onion seeds. You can either make shallow cuts across the tops or leave them as they are. Bake for about 25 minutes (larger ones) or 15-20 minutes for smaller ones until dark golden brown.

Spiced lamb and pistachio rolls

Recipe links:

Rough-puff & other laminated pastries
The very best sausage rolls!
Chorizo and fennel sausage rolls in a paprika rough-puff pastry
Mustard and caramelised onion sausage rolls

Author: Philip

Finalist on Britain’s Best Home Cook (BBC Television 2018). Published recipe writer with a love of growing fruit & veg, cooking, teaching and eating good food. View all posts by Philip