Beef Wellington Recipe
History
The exact date of this Culinary masterpiece is still a bit of a mystery to us,but what we do know is that it was named after and created for Arthur Wellesley -the first Duke of Wellington, he was the commander in the Battle of Waterloo that brought down Napoleon in 1815.
My theory is that the beef must of been covered with a paste to keep it moist while it was roasting and then the paste turned into a crust in the oven…
A dish that was hugely popular in the 60’s and then came back in the 90’s and slowly clawing its way back now I feel.It was classically made with Beef,Pate,Crepe and with Mushroom Duxelle and of course pastry
This is my version of Beef Wellington:
Ingredients
Beef Tenderloin (I used 1.8kg)
400g Mixed Mushroom(I used Button,Shitake and Potabello)
English Mustard
8 Slices of good quality Parma Ham
400g Good quality Puff pastry
2 Eggs
20g Foie Gras (optional)
Method
The First step is to sear your beef. Key points here are to get your pan really, really hot, add tablespoon of butter to your pan and place your well seasoned beef in. The butter will help give your beef colour and also enhance the flavour. I added a couple of garlic cloves in my pan to help flavour (you can also put a sprig of thyme or rosemary). Make sure its brown on all sides and still rare in the middle, take it out of the pan and cool it down as fast as possible by placing it in the fridge (maybe 20min)
While the beef is cooling down in the fridge, cut your mushrooms up in quarters and place them in the blender. You just want the mushrooms to look like they have been roughly chopped. You could do this by hand but it is a huge time waster…
Place your blended mushrooms with salt and pepper in a pan with no oil or butter, what we are trying to achieve is to extract all the water from the mushrooms by cooking them. Fry them till there is no visible water left in the pan and the mushrooms have turned a nice brownish black colour. I like to add a little bit of foie gras to the hot pan at this stage, just helps to give the duxelle a nice richness. Place in a tray and cool down completely…
Now that all the “hard” work is done its time to assemble the Wellington. Take your beef out of the fridge and brush it liberally with English Mustard all over (this will act as a “glue” and give the beef loads of flavour). Place a large sheet of plastic wrap on the table and lay out your slices of parma ham on top of the plastic, making sure the slices overlap each other. Take your mushroom duxelle and spread it over your parma ham with a spatula until it’s even (making sure not to go over the parma ham border). Make sure it’s large enough to wrap around the beef.
Place the beef in the centre and bring one side of the plastic wrap over the beef, pull back the plastic gently so as to leave the mushroom and parma ham stuck to the beef. Do the same to the other side.
Wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for a hours to set.
Roll out the puff pastry to about 1/8 inch thickness and make sure its even all over. Get 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk and mix it together with a pinch of salt. Brush the entire surface of the pastry with this egg wash. This will help the beef stick to the pastry.
Unwrap the beef and place it in the centre. Bring one end of the pastry over the beef tightly and then the same with the other side, cut off the excess pastry on the ends, egg wash them and tuck them underneath.
Let the pastry rest for 20 min in the fridge and pre-heat the oven at 220 deg C (420 F) After 20 min rest, take the uncooked Wellington and give it a brush with the egg wash and then score it gently and place in the oven for about 25-30 min or until golden brown. I like my meat rare, but if you want it more done lower the oven temp and cook it for longer.
Let it rest for 5-10 min and slice them into thick slices (Wellington should never be sliced thinly) I served mine with roast potatoes cooked in duck fat and cream spinach.
