Pigeon and Nasturtium Samosa

Ingredients and Method:
12 Wood pigeon – Breasts only (about 2.5kg)
A big handful of nasturtium leaves and flowers – works out to be about 100g (3-4oz) (for a more peppery version, also use the seeds but crush them before adding to the meat mix or they come through like sweetcorn).
2 Large onions – White or Red
2 Teaspoons of salt

Method
Prepare the pigeon so you have 24 feather free breast fillets and then slice into strips – we teach you how to do this on many of our courses.
Roughly chop the onions.
Add the salt (or salt alternative if bothered about the sodium)
Hand mix the strips of pigeon meat with the onions and then pulse handfuls in a mixer (doing it this way, it stops the meat from becoming a paste) until all done.
Roughly tear the nasturtium leaves in to small pieces and mix in to the meat by hand.

Pastry (‘Samosa’ type)
Flour – Approx 1kg
Water – Approx 270ml
Oil – Approx 270ml
2 Teaspoons Salt (or alternative)
Pastry cutting template e.g. small dish or bowl approx 12cm diameter

Method
Sift flour and salt together and add the vegetable oil, rub together until mix looks like breadcrumbs. Slowly add the water (don’t add it all at once) until you can gather the dough into an elastic ball (like you do with Damper Bread). You can use it straight away or you can put it in an oiled plastic bag for 30 mins before use.

Divide up the pastry mix in to smaller equal portions and then roll out one of the portions to approx 1/8 inch thick (3mm doesn’t sound right) and cut round the dish to create a circle. Cut out as many circles as the portion of pastry will allow. Do not try and cut all the circles out in one go.

Take roughly a squash ball size piece of the meat mix and put in the pastry circle, fold in half, wet the edges and crimp together, flatten slightly to create a small pasty shape.

Deep or shallow fry in small batches until golden brown on both sides and then allow to drain on kitchen paper for a couple of minutes before moving on to a wire rack to cool down.

Repeat the process for all the pastry portions until you have used up all the meat mix.

Rosehip, Hawthorn Berry and Chilli Sauce

Ingredients
630g Haws (hawthorn berries)
350g Rose hips
20g Chillies (I used home-grown ‘Apache’)
350ml Cider vinegar
350ml Water
150g Brown sugar

Method
Collect haws and rosehips, clean, remove any rotten and black berries along with stalks and black bristly end from rosehips. Separate the rosehips and haws.

The reason to separate the berries is due to the small bristles in the rosehips. If you cook them both together, you end up with a lot more of the hairs in the resulting mix.

Put the haws in one pan and the rosehips in another. Mix the vinegar and water and put 500ml in the hawthorn pan and 200ml in the other. Add 100g sugar to the hawthorn pan and 50g to the rosehips.

Heat both pans until the berries become soft and start to break down (approx 15 mins).

Allow to cool until able to be handled and sieve out as much of the juices as possible from the berries. With the rosehips, you need to use muslin cloth to sieve the hairs from the juice. With the hawthorn, you can use either muslin or a food mill.

Finely chop the chillies and either grind in a pestle and mortar with a little bit of coarse sea salt or use a small liquidizer and make a chilli paste.

Mix all the rosehip, haw and chilli pastes together and pour in to sterilized jars and allow to cool.

Note: This is not a pouring sauce so don’t try and get it in to bottles. Use a knife and spread on to the samosa/pasty as required.