Beef Wellington

I come from a Food Network generation that first heard of a Beef Wellington through the angry lips of the celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay.  Beef tenderloin wrapped in a puff pastry? Yes, please!  However, Mr. Ramsay sure did make it known to everyone just how easy this recipe can be to mess up.  Or so we thought.

I happen to like things to be easy.  I like to buy a couple of fillets of beef tenderloin, a roll of puff pastry, a few shallots, and some button mushrooms and be on my way to a “fancy” dinner.

The big difference that I do, and this is nothing new, I’m not a culinary pioneer on this, but I like to wrap individual servings rather than one large sliced to order roast.  Google Beef Wellington, and most of what you will see a full tenderloin presentation.  Why make it more difficult than it needs to be right?

Step 1 Make a Duxelles: (also known in my house as Mushroom Paste)

Ingredients

2 whole shallots
2 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves only
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 cloves of garlic
salt & pepper to taste

1. Add all of the ingredients (salt and pepper later) to a food processor and pulse until the mixture is a fine chopped consistency.
2. In a hot saute pan, add about 2 tablespoons of butter and the Duxelles chopped mixture.  Cook the Duxelles down in the butter until most of the moisture has been removed.  At this point at salt and pepper to taste.
3. Once the Duxelles is cooked down, let it cool.

As written in the Escoffier Cook Book “The uses of Duxelle are legion..”

Step 2 Sear the meat

Ingredients

4 fillets of beef tenderloin
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

1. In a hot pan, add the oil and butter.  (Butter is for taste, Oil is to cook)
2. Season the fillets with salt and pepper, and sear them in the hot fat.  Once they have a nice color flip and sear the other side.
3. Now that we have put a sear on the meat and not fully cooked it, remove them from the pan and let them cool to room temp.

Step 3 Prepare the Wellington

Ingredients

Duxelle
Seared meat
2 tablespoons of mustard
3 sheets of puff pastry
1 egg

1. Rub a small coating layer of mustard on each of the beef fillets.  This will help bind the Duxelle to the meat
2. Next coat the top and sides of each fillet with the Duxelle, spare the bottom.
3. Cut 4 round base layers of pastry slightly larger than the beef fillets and place the fillet on top.
4. Cut 4 larger circles of pastry and cover the beef fillet.  Pinch the cover pastry with the base layer with the end of a fork.
5. Cut a small hole in the top of the pastry to act as a vent for steam.

 

 

Cook for 15min to reach an internal temperature of 130F.  To take a temperature of the meat, use the vent hole for your thermometer.

I like to use a cook and hold oven whenever possible.  This is a piece commercial foodservice equipment, and it is designed to cook for a set amount of time at a high oven temperature, and once the time or product is finished, the oven automatically switches to lower gentle holding temperature.  In short, you can’t overcook!