TtGISH.
Thank the Gods it’s school holidays!!
The kids and I have been hanging out for our winter break. It’s been a busy term for us all (accompanied by varying degrees of winter lurgies), so we’re all looking forward to lots of pyjama days and doing not-much-of-anything.
One of our favourite winter-time school-holiday lunches are snails (at least that’s what we call them). They’re really just ham and cheese wrapped in puff pastry – but boy-oh-boy, they are delicious!
Ingredients
3 sqaures of frozen puff pastry (makes 24 snails)
6-9 thin slices of ham
grated cheddar cheese
barbeque & tomato sauce
Method
Let your puff pastry defrost a little (you need to be able to roll it without it snapping), then pour a dollop each of barbeque and tomato sauce on your pastry and spread. Only spread it over about 4/5ths of the sheet (I find if you take it all the way to all of the top edge, when you roll it the sauce makes the pastry slippery and your snails won’t stay rolled up).
Cover the sauce area of your pastry with ham. I used to slice my ham into strips, but somewhere along the line got a bit lazy and now I just place the slices down whole. Follow this with generous amounts of cheese. The tip here is to make sure your cheese is a little thicker along the ‘end’ edges of your pastry – otherwise you end up with 2 ends bits that are a bit stingy on the cheese.
Roll your pasty using the plastic film the it was separated by in the pack. Using a fork press the outside edge of your pastry to help your snails keep their shape. Slice your roll in half and then slice each half in to fours. Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper (the baking paper make it soooo much easier to lift them off when cooked).
Bake in a 180 degree (C) oven for about 20-30 minutes. It really is a case of keeping an eye on them the first couple of times you make them. Leave them in too short a time and they are still doughy – too long and they’ll burn a bit.
Eat and enjoy.
Tip: Any that don’t get inhaled, pop them in the fridge and warm for a snack the next day!
How did they get the name snails?
The kids decided that’s what they looked like and it’s the name that has stuck!
