This post has been saved from my old blog hellyeahfouringredientrecipes.tumblr.com

Our lovely Monkey Queen of Don’t Make Me Call My Flying Monkeys, was our May Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to dive into the world of en Croute! We were encouraged to make Beef Wellington, Stuffed Mushroom en Croute and to bring our kids into the challenge by encouraging them to create their own en Croute recipes!

“Mandatory Items: Wrap whatever suits your taste in some type of pastry and bake it.” - that sounded perfect to me… but how to make it interesting? Pate En Croute is a common recipe, as is Beef Wellington but as far as I could see no one had ever made Squirrel En Croute - four ingredients or more!

A quick shopping trip for a squirrel from Ridley’s Fish & Game at the Stockbridge Market and I was sorted. My ingredients were:

  • 1 squirrel
  • 1 pack of pate
  • 1 pack of puff pastry
  • 1 egg 

I braised and then simmered the squirrel before taking the meat off the bone. I rolled the pastry, layered on the pate and the squirrel meat and then brushed egg around the pastry. It took ages to cook but that’s because my wife informed me that I shouldn’t have used a whole pack of pastry, who knew! The end result was very tasty - the squirrel meat was moister than I expected and it all tasted pretty awesome!