By Chef, Tony Carr
This pie is a huge success whenever it appears
on the menu. It’s not too complicated, but it does need time to prepare and
marinade, so tackle this recipe at a weekend, or whenever you have plenty of
time on your hands!
To make 4 individual pies
For the
pies you will need:
- 1 oven-ready pheasant
- 1 oven-ready partridge
- 500gm of best sausage meat
- 200gm chicken livers
- 100g of bead crumbs
- 1 onion finely diced and sweated in oil
- 750gm of all butter puff pastry
- 1 beaten egg and a little milk
For the
marinade:
- 200mls of red wine
- 200mls of port
- 200mls brandy
- sprig of thyme
- 1 x onion sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic crushed
- 2 bay leaves
The day before you want to cook it…
- Marinade for the chicken livers. Bring the red wine, port and brandy to the boil and let boil for 1 minute to burn off the alcohol. Remove from the heat.
- Added the sliced onion, garlic, thyme and bay leaf. Cover with a lid and allow to cool. Once cold add the chicken livers and marinade over night in the fridge
On the day:
- Take the breasts off the partridge and pheasant. Heat a large frying pan till very hot and seal the breasts very quickly. Once coloured on both sides allow to cool on a wire rack.
- De-bone and mince the legs of the partridge and pheasant and mix in the sausage meat, onion and marinade from the livers.
- Mince the chicken livers and add to sausage meat mixture.
- Dice in to small 1cm pieces the breasts and add to the sausage mix.
- Season with salt and pepper and mix in 100g of bead crumbs.
- Roll out the puff pastry and cut out 4 round discs approximately 8cm in diameter. Then cut out a further 4 discs, 15cm in diameter.
- Place a ball of game mixture on top of the 8cm disc and egg white around the outside then place a 15 cm disc over the top and seal firmly to the bottom disc. Cut away any excess pastry.
- For decoration, you can leave a 1cm edge all the way around the bottom disc when cutting and then pinch the pastry together around the sides to create a pretty edge.
- Place your pies on a tray lined with grease proof paper, egg wash and allow to rest for at least 2 hours before cooking.
- Make 3 to 5 scores in the top of the pastry.
- Bake in a preheated oven gas mark 5, 190ºC electric or 170ºC fan for about 25 minutes until the pastry in golden brown all over.
