I invented this recipe as a Christmas dinner for two, but I've also served it as a light roast lunch for six people at Easter, so it's very versatile. You can make as many or few parcels as you need (one per person is plenty) and vary the ingredients. This recipe makes four of them. You can make the parcels the day before and keep them in the fridge, then stick them in the oven when you're ready.
Ingredients
- Four turkey breast steaks
- Four herby British-style sausages (for example Cumberland or Lincolnshire)
- 16 slices of pancetta
- 8 fresh sage leaves (or use baby spinach if you can't get them)
- Dijon or sharp German mustard
- Sweet chutney (for example date or pear)
- Black pepper
- Vegetable oil
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C.
- Lay out a sheet of greaseproof paper. Take a turkey steak, pat it dry with a paper towel, and place it on the paper, then lay another sheet of greaseproof on top. Bash it with a rolling pin or meat mallet until it's about half a centimetre thick. Repeat for each steak.
- Squeeze the sausage meat from their skins into a bowl.
- Lay out the first steak, and grind black pepper over it. Then spread a thin layer of mustard over it.
- Lay two of the sage or spinach leaves over it, to cover as much of the surface as possible.
- Spread the meat from one sausage over the leaves.
- Dollop a small amount (a teaspoon or less) of chutney on the widest part of the steak.
- Now roll: most turkey steaks are roughly triangular, so start rolling from the wide end, and finish by tucking the thin end around as a little flap.
- Use four slices of pancetta to wrap the parcel. Use two slices to cover each of the open ends of the roll first, then use the other two slices to cover the width of the roll. I found that I didn't need cocktail sticks to keep the rolls together - the pancetta held everything in place and stuck to itself.
- Finally place the parcels in a ceramic dish (I used a lasagne dish) and brush or spray the tops of the parcels with a little oil. At this point you can cover them and put them in the fridge if you're working in advance.
- When you're ready to bake, put them in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the number and thickness of the parcels. Check they're done by taking a large roll from the middle and cutting it in half.
- You can serve each one as a parcel or sliced to reveal the swirl of green in the roll. Use the juices from the dish to add to some turkey or chicken gravy.
