Black Pudding and Tiger Prawns and Mushroom Duxelle Wellington with Wild Mushroom Sauce

This dish makes sense when you think about it.  I understand it if you're a non black pudding person but believe me, and I did test this on some non black pudding people, the upshot is they now like black pudding.  I wouldn't have said that I was a particular fan of black pudding myself but that's down to the black pudding - as with everything there is good and bad and I would say that bad black pudding is not a nice experience by any measure.  However good quality black pudding, as I have since discovered, since my days of screamingly average cooked breakfasts  on our annual pilgrimage to Ireland fishing on the Corib during the Mayfly, where black pudding sat on the plate staring back at you, daring you to slice into it and bite it, is a pleasure.

Pork and seafood as we already know is a great combination, something the Chinese had worked out long ago and now it's very trendy to mix the two together.  Whether it's Palma Ham and Monkfish or Chorizo and Scallops or Roast Pork Belly and Prawns (see Honey, Soy and Chinese Spice Pork Belly with Prawn Tempura) it isn't such a great leap to add black pudding together with prawn.  Add a lovely creamy wild mushroom sauce to this and you have a delicious, rich dish that is perfect as a starter.  I had experimented with this on my own so I had this as a main course and would have happily have devoured the entire lot saved by the fact that I was desperate for others to try it and not just take my word for it!

There are two stages to this.  Making the Wellington and making the mushroom sauce although it makes sense to cook the mushrooms and shallots at the same time for the base of the sauce and the duxelle.

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized shallots
• 200g Oyster and Chestnut mushrooms
• 25-50g Dried chantarelle and porcini mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 1 teaspoon of chopped sage (or half that if its dried)
• 1 1/4 teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper (this is hot so be careful)
• 25ml of medium dry sherry or 50ml of white wine
• 1 knob of butter for the duxelle
• 200ml of single cream
• 200ml of chicken stock
• 100g of black pudding
• 200g of fresh prawns
• Puff pastry (you could make your own but let's face it why bother!)
• 1 egg (for the glaze)
• Salt and Pepper

Stage One


For those that don't know a duxelle is a stuffing or element to a sauce involving two of my essential favourite ingredients - the shallot and the mushroom.  A duxelle is common to Wellington's and is essentially finely chopped shallot or onion (shallot being more refined and less, 'oniony') mushroom and herbs.  It is then cooked off with wine or sherry and reduced to as dry as you can mixture.  If you are making a beef wellington it needs to be very dry as a lot of moisture is given off by the meat when it rests and moistens the 'croute'.

Cook off the shaIlots in a knob of butter and then add 150g of the oyster and chestnut mushrooms finley chopped, sweat down and then add the herbs and put to one side in the dish.
Stage Two
Add the black pudding.  In this instance the black pudding was large so I had just two large slices which I fried in the pan along with the mushroom.  This needs to be fried until cooked through which is about 2-3 minutes on both sides.  Remove the black pudding from the pan and then slice into small cubes.

Stage Three

Roll out the puff pastry so that you have enough to cover the black pudding and the prawn mix and add the black pudding.

Stage Four 

Now slice the fresh prawns into small pieces and add to the pan and cook through until pink and mix with the duxelle and then layer on top of the black pudding.

                                          

Stage Five

Roll the Wellington together and put in the oven for about 20 minutes at 180c.  While the Wellington is in the oven finish the Wild Mushroom sauce by adding the dried mushrooms to the stock and once they have re-hydrated add the stock and mushrooms to the remaining duxelle which is in the pan. Add the remainder of the wine or sherry and cook off the alcohol and then finally add the cream and reduce until thick enough.

Stage Six

Remove the Wellington and serve as appropriate.  As a starter, 2 pieces with the Wild Mushroom sauce would be perfect as a starter.  I ended up eating half of this and I could, as I say, have munched my way through the lot...

Now to add credibility to this dish Andy Jones has since added this to the repertoire at The Mansion....'nough said!