Beef Wellington

Christmas is always a big day in my family, my Mom will prep all the foods and stuffs for the open house to ensure the guests are well feed and enjoy the warmth of Marbun's family...  Well, I bet they will feel warm because my Dad (Papi) won't hesitate to serve all those expensive liquors for his guests while us just wonder if Papi will let us have a taste of alcohol.

Since I have my own family, we always serve Beef Wellington for Christmas dinner and somehow this food only came once a year from my oven. Let's just keep it like this so it will stay special for us :P (or actually to keep my laziness at the right level). This year around we serve the Beef Wellington with mashed potatoes, roasted carrots and kale and also the onion and wine sauce. 

I prep the Beef Wellington a day in advance so it won't be too hectic on Christmas day since K and M will always have special requests on the last minutes for their christmas dinner. We can't get a nice big Angus Fillet this time, so I decided to make it as individual Beef Wellington instead, causing I let it cooked a little bit too long for the beef.

There is a lot of recipe on the internet, but my favourite is from Gordon Ramsay. The ingredients is not too complicated and as long as you follow the instruction religiously, it won't fail.. errr, except about your cooking time for the beef :P

Ingredients:

Beef fillet of around 1kg

• 3 tbsp olive oil

• 250g chestnut mushroom, include some wild ones if you like (I use almost 400gr)

• 50g butter

• 1 large sprig fresh thyme

• 100ml dry white wine

• 12 slices prosciutto (1 used about 16 sliced ham)

• 500g puff pastry, thawed if frozen

• 2 egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp water

Method:

1.     Consider the size and weight of your steak before calculating the cooking time; eating the well done steak when you want a medium rare one is painful!!! Season the fillet with salt and pepper, and gently press it into the meat with your fingers.

2.     Get the grill pan nice and hot, then add a tbsp of olive oil. When the oil is heat up, put the fillet on the centre of the pan. Only flip the steak once during the cooking.  For medium steak as an end result, cook for 3 minutes for first side and then 2 minutes for the rest of the side.  When the beef is cooked to your liking, remove from the pan to cool, then chill in the fridge for about 20 mins.

3.     While the beef is cooling, chop 250g chestnut (and wild, if you like) mushrooms as finely as possible so they have the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. You can use a food processor to do this, but make sure you pulse-chop the mushrooms so they don’t become a slurry.

4.     Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil and 50g butter in a large pan and fry the mushrooms on a medium heat, with 1 large sprig fresh thyme, for about 10 mins stirring often, until you have a softened mixture. Season the mushroom mixture, pour over 100ml dry white wine and drink the rest of the bottle as you are cooking and cook for about 10 mins until all the wine has been absorbed. The mixture should hold its shape when stirred. Remove the mushroom duxelle from the pan to cool and discard the thyme.

5.     Overlap two pieces of cling film over a large chopping board. Lay 12 slices prosciutto on the cling film, slightly overlapping, in a double row. Spread half the duxelles over the prosciutto, then sit the fillet on it and spread the remaining duxelles over. Use the cling film’s edges to draw the prosciutto around the fillet, then roll it into a sausage shape, twisting the ends of cling film to tighten it as you go. Chill the fillet while you roll out the pastry.

6.     Dust your work surface with a little flour. Roll out a third of the 500g pack of puff pastry to a 18 x 30cm strip and place on a non-stick baking sheet. Roll out the remainder of the 500g pack of puff pastry to about 28 x 36cm. Unravel the fillet from the cling film and sit it in the centre of the smaller strip of pastry. Beat the 2 egg yolks with 1 tsp water and brush the pastry’s edges, and the top and sides of the wrapped fillet. Using a rolling pin, carefully lift and drape the larger piece of pastry over the fillet, pressing well into the sides. Trim the joins to about a 4cm rim. Seal the rim with the edge of a fork or spoon handle. Glaze all over with more egg yolk and, using the back of a knife, mark the beef Wellington with long diagonal lines taking care not to cut into the pastry. Chill for at least 30 mins and up to 24 hrs.

7.     Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Brush the Wellington with a little more egg yolk and cook until golden and crisp – usually it took 20 minutes for medium steak when i use about 700gr fillet steak. This time as i wrap the steak individually, each steak is 200gr and 20 minutes give me a medium-well done steak, still juicy but I want that pinky meat :(

Modified from BBC Goodfood

© 2015 Ovie Ober-Marbun