Daring Cooks – December 2009 – Beef Wellington
The 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Simone of Junglefrog Cooking. Simone chose Salmon en Croute (or alternative recipes for Beef Wellington or Vegetable en Croute) from Good Food Online.
This was my first challenge ever and it went… ok.
I chose the Beef Wellington as my partner doesn’t really like salmon and I don’t normally cook with beef all too often.
Started with a mountain of chopped mushrooms. The mushrooms were meant to be cooked until they were a thick paste but mine never seemed paste-y at all. They reduced down a lot though, but all I could manage was well cooked. Oh well!
I also decided to really challenge myself the first time and make the pastry from scratch as well.
I chucked that in the fridge to chill while everything else started coming together.
Next step was the herb crepes. These came together really easily – I just should have put more herbs in them. You can barely spot them!
The beef was then seared in the pan until brown. Next step was layering it all. First a layer of herb crepes, the mushroom mixture and then the beef. The whole thing was rolled up and put in the fridge to chill.
Back to the pastry. I tried rolling it out and it just would not stick together. Added more water and butter and finally got it to a point where it was (barely) coming together. The herb crepe wrapped parcel was put in the centre of the pastry and then I attempted to wrap the parcel in the pastry – DISASTER! The whole sheet of pastry either a) stuck to the kitchen counter or b) completely crumbled.
At this point I was getting so hungry that I gave up and used some puff pastry sheets that were in the freezer. Unfortunately even these were a bit past it and the edges were dry and hard. I cut all the shitty bits off and managed to get just enough pastry out of two sheets to wrap my wellington up in.
The end result was great though! Everything came together really well and my boyfriend and I gobbled it up.
Instructions for Beef Wellington (serves 4)
Button mushrooms – 17.6 ounces/500gr (stalks removed and finely chopped)
Olive oil – 2-3 tbsp
thyme – 1 sprig
Beef fillet, center cut piece – 21.16 ounce/600 gr
English mustard – 1 tbsp
puff pastry (all butter pastry pack) – 17.6 ounce/500 gr
parma ham (prosciutto) – 3 slices
egg yolk – 1 pcs, beaten
For the herb crepes:
plain (all purpose) flour – 0.3 cup/1.76 ounce/50 gr
milk – 0.5 cup/125 ml
mixed herbs – 1 tbsp (chopped, use herbs such as cervil, chives and tarragon
butter – 0.5 tbsp
Instructions:
1. To make the crepes, whizz the flour, egg and milk with a pinch of salt in a blender or processor until smooth. Pour into a jug and stir in the herbs and some seasoning. Leave to rest.
2. Fry the mushrooms in a little oil until they give up all their moisture and it has evaporated, leaving you with a thick paste. Add the thyme leaves and some seasoning and keep cooking for a few minutes. Cool.
3. Stir the melted butter into the crepe batter, heat a 15 cm crepe pan and oil it lightly. Pour in enough batter to make a thin layer on the base of the pan, cook until the top surface sets and then turn over and cook briefly. Remove and repeat with the rest of the batter. This will make a couple more than you need so choose the thinnest ones for the recipe.
4. Sear the beef all over in a little oil in a very hot pan. Brush with the mustard, season and allow to cool.
5. Lay a large sheet of cling-film on a kitchen surface and put two crepes down on it, overlapping a little. Lay over the parmaham (prosciutto). Spread the mushroom mixture over the ham and put the beef in the centre. Roll the cling-film up, taking the crepe with it, to wrap the beef completely into a nice neat log. Chill for 1 hour.
6. Heat the oven to 200°C/390F. Roll out the pastry, remove the clingfilm and wrap the beef in the pastry like a parcel, with the ends tucked under. Trim to keep it nice and neat. Brush with egg, score with shallow lines across the top and chill for 20 minutes.
7. Cook for 20 minutes. The best way to test if the meat is done to your liking is to neatly and carefully stick a skewer into the beef, count to three and then test it against your inner wrist. If it is cold, the beef will be raw, if it is warm then the beef will be rare and if it’s hot, it’ll be cooked through. Leave to rest for 20 minutes before carving.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.