Recipe: Squirrel tortellini with blackcurrant and sweet cicely

Recipe for Squirrel tortellini with blackcurrant and sweet cicely from A Rural Cook by Richard Craven

We've been cooking squirrel for around seven years now. If I'm honest it wasn't something that I was looking to cook but came about from a conversation about woodland management with a friend who looks after an estate near Chipping Campden. He told me that the squirrels strip the bark from the tree and once they get to a certain point the tree dies, so it is important to control the numbers. He wanted to know if I could make use of this by-product. When I agreed, I hadn't taken into account that I'd have to skin them. Once I had tasted the meat though, I was more than happy to do the work required. For a long time, this stripped-back dish was what I was most proud of having on the menu. It was so simple it had to be cooked perfectly every time as there was nowhere to hide. The original dish used just rabbit and water outside of the pasta recipe.

Squirrel mousse

• 200g squirrel legs and loins
• 175ml whipping cream
• 6g salt
• 200g squirrel legs
• Squirrel offal

Squirrel broth

• 1.5kg squirrel bones and shoulders
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar
• 2 tsp salt
• 200g peeled banana shallots, halved
• 200g celery, halved
• 200g carrots, halved
• 2 tsp peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• 50ml cognac

Squirrel tortellini

• Pasta (see below)
• Squirrel mousse

To finish

• Blackcurrant gel (see below)
• Sweet cicely leaves
• Sweet cicely flowers
• Fresh blackcurrants

Squirrel mousse

Ensure the silver sinew is removed from the legs. Put the squirrel legs and loins, whipping cream and salt in the Pacojet beaker with the four-bladed coupé blade and run through the cycle twice with overpressure. Place in the fridge until needed.

Sear the squirrel legs in a hot pan, then add them to seasoned water or stock and simmer gently until cooked. Use a skewer to check for resistance. Cool in the stock before picking down finely and folding through the squirrel mousse.

Cook the squirrel offal (hearts, livers and kidneys) until medium rare. Chill and then slice finely and fold through the squirrel mousse. Place the mousse in a piping bag with a 0.9mm nozzle.

If using rabbit, keep the loins back from the mousse mix, as there is a lot more meat on them. Cook until medium in foaming butter to give a nice colour. Cool and slice and then add to the mousse and the offal mix as well.

Squirrel broth

Roast the squirrel bones slowly at 170°C until a deep golden brown. Deglaze the roasting tray with water.

Place the bones, juices, vinegar and salt and all the vegetables into a stock pot and cover with 5 litres of water. Simmer on a low stove for 10 hours or until the squirrel bones are breaking up, so you know you have taken all the flavour from the bones.

Pass the broth through a chinois, then add a splash of cognac and check the seasoning before chilling. This is perfectly usable at this stage, but we then clarify the broth.

Squirrel tortellini

Roll out the pasta with a rolling pin to an approximate thickness of 1cm. Work it through the pasta machine, one setting at a time until it's at the thinnest setting and is as wide as the pasta machine will allow you.

To make the tortellini cut the pasta sheet into 6cm x 6cm squares. Keep the majority under a damp cloth to prevent the dough from drying out.

Pipe 10g of squirrel mix into the centre of each piece of pasta. Using a damp pastry brush, brush around the squirrel mix pasta to help bind it.

Next create the tortellini shapes by folding the pasta dough over the mousse from one corner to another, creating a triangular shape so the corners meet each other.

Make sure there are no air bubbles or holes in the pasta. Finally, cross two of the corners together to create a small bow-like join. Place the tortellini on a cut out square of baking parchment. Leave in the fridge until required and repeat the process required number of tortellini.

To finish

Warm up two pans of broth. One should be kept below a simmer to ensure it remains clear. The other you can allow to get hotter as we cook the tortellini in it.

Drop the tortellini in the hotter broth for 3-4 minutes. Probe to ensure the core is over 65°C. Place a dot of blackcurrant gel into the fold of the tortellini. Place the tortellini in a bowl and garnish with sweet cicely flowers and leaves. We serve the broth tableside.

Pasta

• 120g egg yolks
• 60g large whole egg
• 325g strong white flour

Mix the egg and the yolks together. Place the flour in a food processor and turn on. Slowly feed the egg mix through the top of the food processor until it resembles bread crumbs. Be careful not to overwork the dough. Remove the crumb-like mixture onto a clean surface and knead together.

Place in a compostable vacuum bag and seal. Press down to ensure it's not too thick (approximately 2cm) so it's easier to roll out at the next stage. Leave in the fridge for at least an hour before using.

Blackcurrant gel

• 1kg blackcurrant purée
• 12g agar agar

Heat the purée to a simmer and add the agar agar. Keep on the heat while stirring for 30 seconds to activate the agar agar. Transfer to a baking tray and set in the fridge. Once set dice up and add to a blender until the blackcurrent is smooth. Pass the mix through a chinois into a container. Place the container in a chambervacuum pack machine and ‘boil' three times. Transfer to a squeezy bottle ready for plating.

Recipe from A Rural Cook By Richard Craven (A Way With Media, £65)