Venison Wellington

Make the venison stock  Recipe   the previous evening or early on the day of cooking.

Liberally season the venison fillet with salt and fresh black pepper. If it is tied with string, leave this on at this point. Heat up a couple of tablespoonfuls of olive in a frying pan over a fairly high heat, and brown the fillet on all sides. When done put the venison to one side to cool right down, and also keep the cooking pan and its contents to one side.

Clean, peel the mushrooms as required and then chop them into fairly small dice. Peel and chop the garlic into as small dice as you can. Melt a couple of tablespoonfuls of butter in a pan over a lowish heat, stir in the mushrooms and garlic, season with a little sauce and a lot of fresh black pepper, and cook until barely soft.

Take off the stalks of the parsley, chop fairly finely and stir in a good handful in to the mushroom mixture. Use the lid to the pan to drain off any excess butter from the mixture and put to one side.

Prepare the carrots for the roasted carrots  Recipe  , and discard the outer leaves of the spring greens, trim and cut into broad pieces, and put ino a steamer.

Grind a half dozen of juniper berries and stir along with a half tablespoonful of cornflour into the venison cooking dish. Put over a low/medium heat, add the madiera and red wine stirring as you do so, and slowly pour in most of the venison stock to make a rich gravy. Season with salt and pepper if requitred and put to one side.

Take the string off the venison when cold. Roll out the pastry as thinly as you reasonably can, put a fair amount pf the musroom farce on the pastry followed by the venson fillet. Carefully roll the fillet in the pastry adding more farce as you do so trying to keep the pastry as tight as possible (quite hard).

Trim off the pastry from the ends of the fillet. Use some milk and a pastry brush and your fingers to seal the edges of the pastry. Very lightly butter a baking tray and carefully put the fillet on it with the join underneath. Beat an egg and paint the pastry all over with it.

Put the venison into an oven at 400°F/200°C/Reg6 for about 40 minutes until golden brown  Picture  . Finish preparing the carrots using some basil instead of the tarragon and omitting the garlic  Recipe  ,  Picture  . Steam the greens for ten minutes or so, drain and finish off in a little olive oil and some chilli flakes  Picture  . Rewarm the gravy.

When ready take the venison out of the oven, very carefully cut into thick slices and place on serving plates. Add some carrots and greens, pour over a little gravy and serve  Zoom  .