A recipe for Pigeon Wellington
Here's a recipe for Pigeon Wellington that's perfect for a dinner party because it's impressive but relatively simple to prepare, taking just 20 minutes. As in a traditional Wellington, the meat comes wrapped in pastry - but instead of making it you use sheets of ready-made filo pastry, which is readily available in most supermarkets. Serves 1 (increase quantities as needed).
Ingredients
- 30g spinach
- salt and pepper
- 30g chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned
- 1 knob of butter
- 1 spritz of lemon juice
- 1 pigeon breast
- 1 slice of Parma ham
- 1 sheet of filo pastry
- 1 egg yolk, beaten
Method
- Heat the oven to 180ºC.
- Blanch the spinach in boiling, salted water, drain, leave to cool and season well.
- Cook the chanterelles, finishing with butter, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Leave to cool.
- Seal the pigeon breast on both sides in a smoking hot pan, this should take seconds. Put on a resting rack, leave to cool and season well.
- Place the spinach on top of the pigeon breast and the mushrooms on top of that.
- Roll the layered pigeon in the sheet of Parma ham.
- Fold the filo pastry to the size of the pigeon breast, just slightly longer. Egg wash the pastry lightly, place the Parma-ham wrapped pigeon onto the filo and roll up.
- Season well and place into a hot pan for four minutes, colouring on the two shorter sides and the bottom.
- Place the un-coloured side onto the pan, then put the pan in the oven for 2 minutes at 180°C. Turn over and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Once cooked, allow to rest for 3 minutes before serving.