Rustic Sausage and Apple Pie

In our house saturday night tea and autumn means just one thing - Meat pie and potato cakes and beetroot - it is written in stone and has been since well I ate solids - now normally we are talking mince and onion pie, occasionally a chicken pie makes a appearance but sometimes I just want to mix things up abit.

The other half wandered past the other day and said (in a very homer simpson way) mmm sausage pie . . . I have heard of such things . . . . and wandered away. Normally his culinary ramblings go in one ear and out the other but this one got me thinking

Ingredients
1.5 packet of thick sausages - any flavour or type but thick ones.
6oz short crust pastry - either bought or made
2 eating apples - cored and cut into chunks
2 stalks of celery - cut into chunks


Take the sausages and slit the skins and squidge out the sausage meat into a large bowl
Sprinkle over a tablespoon of plain flour. and mix together with the meat. Divide the pastry into two and roll one half out thinly - place on a baking tray.

Take 2/3 of the sausage meat and roughly shape into a round patty. Place in the centre of the rolled out pastry leaving around a 4cm border. Take 1/2 of the celery and apple and gently push into the top of the sausage meat patty to built up your pie. Take the remaining sausage meat and place over the top of the pie then top with the remaining apple and celery.

Roll out the remaining pastry large enough to cover the heap of meat and fruit. Egg wash around the heap and place the pasty over it. Egg wash along the edge and then roll the bottom border of pastry up to make a crust. Cut a small nick in the top of the pie to let the steam out and then egg wash the crust.

Bake in a preheated oven 175C for 20 - 25 minutes until the crust is golden.

Because of the high fat content in sausages you may find the pasty goes a bit on the soggy side.