A twist on a classic, and frankly one with oodles of online recipes telling you how. This one is mine.
This is a recipe where you need to use fillet – venison fillet is much smaller than beef, so I use 12cm sections for individual wellingtons. This recipe is for 2 individual wellingtons.
Prep: 10-15min Cook: 18min
Ingredients
2 sections of venison fillet
175g puff pastry
4 slices Parma ham
175g mushrooms finely chopped
English mustard
Ground pepper
Egg whisked for an egg wash
Method
- Dry fry the mushrooms to remove as much liquid as possible, do not let them brown, you want concentrated flavour, not fried flavour. Add a grind of pepper.
- Pre-heat the oven to 225c (fan)
- Seal the venison by searing each side for 15sec in a hot pan (with a tiny bit of smoking olive oil). Just enough to seal and colour. Make sure the pan is really hot.
- Lay out some cling film, then 2 pieces of Parma ham as a sheet, spread half the mushrooms. Smear the venison with 1/2tsp mustard, places on the bed of mushrooms and wrap in the ham (using the cling film helps).
- Roll out half the puff pastry and wrap the venison parcel (minus the cling film…) seal with egg wash, wash the parcel and gently score with a knife.
- Cook for 18 min.
If you do this right the venison is rare but not at all bloody and cuts with a fork. No salt is needed – it all comes from the ham, and the other flavours add an earthy note, keeping the venison as the star.
The pastry is thin – on purpose, its to seal and support, you don’t want to cut in and just get pastry – well if you do use more.
Serve with luxury, Dauphinoise potatoes perhaps, maybe mushrooms in a brandy cream sauce – you get the picture.