Three Bird Wellington

Three Bird Wellington

by Shopify API

Three Bird Wellington by José Souto

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/375°F/gas mark 4.

Lay the bacon slices vertically on a large piece of clingfilm, so that they overlap slightly. Starting from the edge of the bacon, lay the three pheasant breasts horizontally on top, again, overlapping them slightly.

Divide the sausage meat in half. Put each half between two pieces of clingfilm and roll out until they’re the size of the three breasts.  Place the first piece of sausage meat onto the pheasant breasts and sprinkle with half the pistachios and apricots. Then, put the four pigeon breasts on top, followed by the second piece of sausage meat, and the rest of the pistachios and apricots.  Finally, top everything off with the four partridge breasts.

Carefully roll everything up, wrapping the bacon around the breasts and sausage meat. Then, roll everything in clingfilm, twist the ends to give you a long sausage-shaped joint and put in the fridge for 20 minutes.

On another piece of clingfilm, roll out a piece of puff pastry to approx. 3mm to 4mm thickness. It must be long enough to cover the meat and overlap by 2cm underneath, and about 5cm wider. Brush a little water over the top end and along the edges to help it seal later. Take the meat out of the fridge, remove the clingfilm and place it at the bottom edge of the pastry. Roll the meat in the pastry until you meet the top edge. Tighten the roll and seal the dough on the sides by gripping the clingfilm on each side and squeezing slightly. Remove the clingfilm and pierce any air pockets to ensure the pastry is well set around the joint. Lay the joint on a well-greased tray with the seal on the bottom and brush the top with egg wash.

Roll another piece of puff pastry to a 3mm thickness and then roll a lattice cutter along it. Place this over the top of the joint, trim off any excess and egg wash it.

Finally, make three small holes at the base, along each side of the joint, to allow any juices to escape. Place into a pre-heated oven at 180°C (normal oven temperature) for 30 minutes, then turn up to 200°C (180°C fan/gas mark 6) for a further 15 minutes. Allow to rest for 10 minutes after removing from the oven and before cutting.

Image by Steve Lee

The Eat Game Awards aim to celebrate the best of wild British produce by recognizing great culinary achievements and other contributions to the cooking and eating of game.  They offer those less familiar with game the chance to get a better understanding of how to cook it and the confidence to include it in their regular culinary repertoires.

Learn more about the Eat Game Awards here.

Ingredients

Serves: 10

Prep time: 35 minutes

Cooking time: 40 to 55 minutes

9 long slices of streaky bacon

3 skinned pheasant breasts

260g Cumberland sausage meat (if difficult to find, just remove 260g worth of Cumberland sausages from their skins)

90g dried apricots (preferably organic)

20g pistachio nuts, shell removed

4 skinned pigeon breasts

4 skinned partridge breasts

1kg puff pastry

1 egg, beaten for egg wash