Wrapping a whole bird in pastry isn't new, but its something I think we should explore more. Whether its a short paste, puff paste or even a dumpling dough, this is something with a great and illustrious history - everything from batter puddings through to the decadent Cailles en Sarcophages of Babettes Feast, they're always exceptional dishes.
A while ago when we had a friend visiting with her kids I wanted to cook something that children would think 'wow thats amazing' but a parent might still get a kick out of, so I baked a whole chicken wrapped in pastry. Not a weekday dinner though, so today I did something rather more sensible.
If you follow this blog you know I picked up a pile of partridges in Ely recently, and that I made extra pastry on Saturday.
This evening I rolled out some pastry to, well, about the diameter of a small dinner plate, egged around the edges and put a partridge (seasoned with a few slivers of horse mushroom and some butter in it) in the middle before sealing it up. I did one bird each. Its a good idea to put them back in the fridge for a while to firm up the pastry before putting them into a hot oven.
Now while the oven was heating up I rubbed spices (coriander, cinnamon, paprika, salt and pepper) onto quarter of a pumpkin and put that into the oven. After that had 15 minutes or so, I put the partridges in. When they came out they looked something like this...
The pastry wrapped birds just needed a little rest, which is great because that gives lots of time to prepare everything else. While my other half washed some cauliflower and put it on to steam, I scraped the pumpkin out into the pan it was roasted in, added a little butter and lemon juice, and mashed it up. And thats it - a show-stopping dinner, and really easy.
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