CONOR POPElooks at sausage rolls

Denny Gold Medal Cocktail Sausage Rolls

€4 for 540g, €7.40 per kg 

While Denny has almost certainly lost market share to all manner of gourmet sausages in recent years, it still retains a place in our hearts. The company’s pack of sausage rolls is the cheapest we came across and, while they are unlikely to win any awards, they are grand. The texture of the sausage meat is a little on the soft and mushy side, and each roll contains just 19 per cent pork – the lowest percentage by far. The pastry is also very dry and flaky and a little tasteless. Having said that, they are familiar, will be widely available in the run-up to Christmas, cheap and perfectly pleasant.

Verdict:Grand ***

The DIY Sausage Roll

€12.80 for 1.4kg, €9.14 per kg

Making sausage rolls requires zero skill and even we were able to manage it without too much hassle. Your local butcher should be able to sell you good quality sausage meat and it will cost about €4 a pound. We bought two pounds of it and two packets of puff pastry at a cost of €4.80 so, for our investment of just under €13, we got more than 30 good-sized sausage rolls, with extra feel-good factor thrown in at no extra cost. The sausage rolls don’t look perfect – at least not when we made them – but you can season them as you wish, add as much or as little meat as you wish and make as many or as few as you want. While they are more hassle, they do taste better than any of their rivals and work out cheaper than the high-end options too.

Verdict:Can't be beaten *****

Tesco Finest

€1.99 for 200g, €9.95 per kg

These are great. The sausage meat filling is top notch and there is loads of it.

Each of the rolls – although they are more squares than rolls – has a lovely meaty texture and a herbiness that we found to be surprisingly seasonal.

The pastry has a tendency to fall apart and, within seconds of biting into our first, the ground around us was strewn with sausage roll detritus.

We would hate to see our kitchen floor if we served these at a party.

Verdict: Nice and meaty ****

Marks & Spencer Pork Cranberry Sausage Rolls

€3.69 for 240g, €15.37 per kg

Sausages and cranberries together? Seriously? We were initially unconvinced by this combination and, after eating more of these than was, strictly speaking, necessary, we remained unconvinced that the combination actually worked. The cranberries make these too sweet and the sausage meat something of a bit player. While the filling left us decidedly nonplussed, the pastry is excellent and not at all greasy. Then there is the price, which is fairly savage and will put them out of the reach of many.

Verdict:Nice but sweet ***

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