Three Bird Roast

The plan for the three bird roast demo last thursday evening at the School of Artisan food was to use a small five kilo bronze free- range turkey, a two kilo free- range chicken and a three kilo free- range duck.

I got the train from King's Cross in the morning thinking all good but in passing on the phone, I had said that maybe I could do a second three bird roast if the game keeper had any birds about. I got to the Welbeck Estate where I checked in and thought I would have look at the birds, but going into the butchery room, I was confronted by some mallard ducks, a red legged Partridge and some pheasants. 

All good with that so far except I also had to pluck them so they could get into the oven and as the mallards were in place of the commercial duck there was a lot to do as I probably haven't plucked mallards since I was twenty (and I would like to say that twenty was only a few years ago but it’s more like thirty than five).

With some help from the lovely Lee-Anna, we got them all done in double quick time as they were still warm, and then rushed the two different roasts to the refectory kitchen as they had to be cooked for 8 o'clock. They were then stuffed and made ready for the oven. 

The stuffing was made for me by Gill in the refectory kitchen, with my instruction of no bread, cous-cous or anything like that as bread based stuffings absorb moisture and can make the birds dryer. If ewe want to have something like sage and onion stuffing, roast it in a separate tray a little on the side before your three bird roast is done.

Watch out for the video after xmas!