This garlic sausage in pastry crust is one of our all-time family favorites. You can serve it as an hors d’oeuvre or make it a meal, as I sometimes do, with some soup or a salad. The first time I had this was at a party that my parents threw at least 30 years ago. The party became an annual event, and we always looked forward to our yearly fix of saucisson. When the caterer closed shop in East Hampton and moved to Vermont, he wouldn’t part with the recipe; all he would say was that he used a French-style garlic sausage from a local purveyor.

We all liked the saucisson so much that I had to figure out how to make it. Luckily, I did. The pastry is a sour cream dough that you can make ahead. Polish kielbasa works just as well as the French garlic sausage, and it’s a lot easier to find (Hillshire Farm brand is in every supermarket). You can prepare this up through step #10 ahead of time, and keep the logs in the refrigerator for up to 2 days or wrap them well and freeze for several months. I usually bake off two logs for the four of us for dinner and put the other two in the freezer for another time. I think I’ve had more requests for this recipe than for any other recipe in this book.