Venison Wellington

This is the ultimate meal next time you're entertaining, surprisingly easy just a little fiddly - but melt in your mouth delicious and VERY impressive (if you're into that sort of thing!).

Take a large-ish Venison Denver Leg fillet or if you're feeling excessive some Venison backsteak. Allow about 100-125g per person.

For 600g of venison you'll need 300g of mushrooms, 6-8 rashers of streaky bacon and 1 pack of ready rolled flaky puff pastry.

First, sear the venison all over in a hot pan - 2-3 minutes each side, then put on a plate and place in the refrigerator while you prepare the rest.

Finely dice the mushrooms - so the pieces are all smaller than the size of your little fingernail, cook them in a pan with a good knob of butter, a good dash of olive oil, a few sprigs of thyme and a pinch of salt. When they start getting dry add about 100ml of whatever white wine you happen to be drinking at the time. Stir well and keep going until all the moisture is absorbed and mushrooms are well cooked - to an almost paste like consistency.

Then, spread out a length of gladwrap/clingfilm on the bench - a good 40cm. Lie the rashers of bacon across the clingfilm so they are just touching.

Take half of the mushroom mixture and spread it out across the middle half of the bacon, put the venison on the mushroom then the balance of the mushroom on top of the venison.

Use the clingfilm to help roll it all together and seal tightly - the aim is to perfectly enclose the meat in an even layer of mushroom with the bacon wrapped around. Once your little package is tightly sealed put it in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes (or for as long as 24 hours).

The last step - cut a piece of pastry that is about 1 inch larger on all sides than your meat. Carefully unwrap the meat, place it on the pastry base then lie the remainder of the pastry overtop. Seal the edges with a fork then tuck neatly under, glaze with beaten egg or milk, make a couple of shallow slices across the top - then you're ready to go.

Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 20-25 minutes. We did the one in the picture for 17 minutes and you can see it's a little on the rare side... perfection in our household but not to everyones taste.

Go on - try this, it's worth the fuss!