Paleo Turkey Wellington

Posted by on 30 Dec 2012 in Poultry, Recipes | 4 comments

Paleo Turkey Wellington
  • Sumo

For years now, we have been making pretty much the same meals every Christmas Eve and Christmas. We usually end up having Raclette (melted cheese over potatoes) with table grilled meats  or cheese Fondue on Christmas Eve and then on Christmas we have turkey or ham with gratin potatoes, cooked carrots and green beans.

This year we decided to try something new since we don’t really eat cheese or potatoes anymore. We recently watched a Jamie Oliver cooking show where he wrapped a turkey breast in some ready made puff pastry dough and we decided to experiment and come up with a paleo version for our Christmas dinner.

We started with two medium sized turkey breasts stuffed with homemade cranberry sauce. We covered the breasts with some cooked mushroom paté, crumbled bacon and rosemary. Then we wrapped the whole breast in an almond flour pastry (which actually rolled out and turned out better than I expected).

Ingredients for the turkey part

  • turkey breast (we used 2 breasts, each weighing 400 grams)
  • cranberry sauce, a few spoonfuls per breast
  • sea salt and ground pepper
  • 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme
  • olive oil
  • 6 pieces of bacon
  • 3 sprigs of  fresh rosemary
  • 350 grams of mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 large egg, beaten (to brush on the pastry)

What to do

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
  2. Place your turkey breasts on a cutting board and slice into it in order to be able to open it up and make a sort of pocket.
  3. Season well with salt and pepper and then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle on half of the thyme.

    Seasoned turkey breast

  4. Now spread an even layer of cranberry sauce over your turkey.

    Add on the cranberry sauce

  5. Fold it back into shape to seal your cranberry sauce in the middle and secure with toothpicks.

    Stuffed and ready

  6. Transfer onto a roasting tray and sprinkle the outside with more salt, pepper and thyme and another drizzle of olive oil.
  7. Rub it all in and cover your turkey with foil and put in the oven to cook for about an hour (until a meat thermometer says about 70C). Remove and cool when done. It needs to be cool before putting it it’s pastry shell later.
  8. While your turkey is cooking, fry up your bacon. Strip off the leaves of two sprigs of rosemary and add them to the bacon for about the last 30 seconds.
  9. Remove your bacon and rosemary and set aside. The rosemary should be crispy.  Crumble when cool.
  10. Now cook your chopped mushrooms in the bacon grease over medium heat for about 5 minutes with a pinch of salt and pepper.
  11. The mushrooms will make a lot of their own juice, so cook until the juice has evaporated and the mushrooms are slightly caramelized.  Once the mushrooms are caramelized, add in a pat of butter or a splash of olive oil and then pulse them in a food processor until they make a sort of slightly chunky paté.

    Mushroom patè

The pastry part

  • 2 1/2 cups almond flour
  • 1/2 cup arrowroot powder
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tablespoons grass fed butter or coconut oil
  • 1/4 tsp salt
Dump it all into the food processor and mix until a dough forms. Roll your dough into a large ball and slice it in half with a knife.Roll each half out between 2 pieces of parchment paper separately. One will be your bottom crust and the other will be your top. This recipe makes enough for one large turkey breast, so double it if you are going to make two big breasts.

Perfect pastry

Putting it all together

  1. Once your bottom pastry is rolled out, spread a thin layer of your mushroom paté over it. Place your mostly cooked turkey breast from above on top of that (don’t forget to take the toothpicks out!). Leave about half an inch all the way around the turkey breast and trim off excess dough.

    Mushroom paté on the bottom dough

  2. Now pat mushroom paté over the top of the turkey (with your hands).
  3. Sprinkle your crumbled bacon and rosemary over the mushroom turkey mound.

    Ready for the top dough

  4. Carefully transfer your top pastry over everything.
  5. Crimp the top pastry to the bottom pastry.
  6. Now brush on an egg wash (1 beaten egg) to make it shiny. This is totally optional.
  7. Lift your parchment paper with your turkey wellington onto a baking sheet and place in a preheated 180C/350F oven.

    Ready for the oven

  8. Cook at 180C/350F for about 30 minutes or until your pastry is golden.

    Golden brown

    Slice and serve!

    Turned out pretty

    Recipe success!

 

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4 Comments

  1. Bianca / 1 January 2013

    I have been wanting to do a beef Wellington. This looks great, I may be persuaded to try this turkey variation.

    • lisa / 1 January 2013

      Hi Bianca,
      I think it would be just as good (if not better) with beef 🙂 We chose turkey because my daughter has been a lifelong vegetarian and we just recently convinced her to eat some meat. So far she only does bacon (of course) and poultry.

  2. Marie Robertson / 2 January 2013

    I actually cooked Jamie’s turkey wellington for christmas dinner. My fiance and I are trying Paleo for the month of January to see how it works for us. He has some friends who swear by it.
    This receipe looks amazing and makes me realise that we can do this!!
    Thanks 🙂

    • lisa / 2 January 2013

      Hi Marie,
      I love Jamie Oliver and have been following him since his very early days. I’m sure his turkey wellington was better than mine—it was definitely prettier than mine! My life and my health are so much better being paleo. I hope you and your husband will find it works for you. There are so many delicious whole foods out there and so many paleo recipes that I never, ever feel deprived. Good luck!