This is one of those nights I really wish I could eat a lot. I made Beef Wellington. YUMMO! I saw Gordon Ramsay do it on the F Word a week ago or so and I thought -”Well shit, I can do that.” Also they make it pretty often in Kitchen Nightmares.
Here’s how I did it:
In a food processor, pulse mushrooms until finely chopped.
Like this:
I used Portabello, Baby Bella, White, and Shitake. Because that’s what they had at the store and I couldn’t decide.
Then place in a hot pan with nothing else to cook the water out of the mushrooms.
Mushrooms are full of water, you can see the steam was pretty thick. You can’t tell, but the mushrooms were pretty much boiling in their own ‘juices’. It’s about this time that I realized that I forgot to get stuff to make a nice gravy and that since it was Wellington I was making there would be no pan drippings. So once the mushrooms were done-they stuck together easily, looked drier and there was little to no steam-I removed them and deglazed the pan with a little truffle oil and some sherry. I saved the ‘drippings’
At that point I quickly trimmed the roast I’d bought-I wanted a nice 3 or 4 pound tenderloin but they didn’t have any so I bought a small roast-to make it a uniform size-I kept the trimmings for the gravy I was cobbling together too. Then I rubbed it down with kosher salt and garlic pepper.
Then place in a hot pan to quickly sear on all sides to seal the juices inside.
Remove from pan and cool for a moment or two. Then brush with English Mustard. I couldn’t find the Coleman’s I wanted, so I used standard yellow. Next time though I think I’ll hold out for the Coleman’s as it was a bit too tangy. But still pretty tasty. Notice how I did this in a plate so I didn’t have yellow mustard stains all over my cutting board?
Meanwhile I added the drippings to the pan I’d seared the roast in. As well as some onion a little mushrooms and garlic as well as some spices as well as the finely chopped trimmings. I let it boil while I finished.
I laid out some plastic wrap, and put down a layer of prosciutto (spelled wrong I’m sure). Then spread the mushrooms over it.
It’s easier said than done, but wrap that roast up inside the wrap.
Place in the fridge for at least 15 min. At this point I found some carrots in the fridge that were a little too dried out to eat on their own so I decided to turn my gravy into a sauce and added them into the pan.
I also cut up a potato-skin on, added some Italian Seasoning, some salt and pepper and celery seed. I let it boil until the carrots were mushy, and started in on my other intended dish…mashed potatoes. Now just so you know, I pureed the veggie/stock mixture and served it like a sauce. Since it’s an orangey brown sauce and sort of lumpy I didn’t bother with photos. Plus, we’ve all seen sauce covered potatoes right?
Then I decided that enough time had passed and I worked on covering the roast roll in the puff pastry. I bought frozen, and wanted to document the whole process, but between the roast roll and the sticky dough my hands were a bit too messy to bother with the camera so I just got it done. Tip-be generous with egg wash while wrapping. After wrapping, brush with beaten egg, score and sprinkle with coarse salt. I used Kosher.
According to Gordon, place it in the oven at about 425 for about 40min (if it’s a 4 pound piece of meat). Mine was bigger, so waited until it reached about 150 degrees.
Of course the 1st time I poked it, it started leaking. But damn doesn’t that look pretty??
All in all it took just over an hour, 70min. I let it sit for 20 to rest before slicing. Even with the room temp right at 72, it was still very hot.
In hindsight I could have cooked it longer-but it was a cheap cut of meat-the selection was quite limited and frankly I’m going to start going to the butcher shop for things like this. So I’m glad I didn’t cook it longer and that Ben and I like meat on the rarer side. Even though it looks like it’s dripping and glistening, other than a fine wetness on the board, there’s no big pool of juice, and there wasn’t when I plated it and stared at it for 5 min to see if it would. Which made me feel nice. Medium Rare, but not bloody.
Doesn’t it look pretty?? I did good!!
But Gordon Ramsay did good with this version, I know that mustard and proscuitto aren’t traditional additions-a proper Duxelles (pate mixed into the mushrooms cut up and cooked like I did) is called for, with a generous addition of truffles. But seriously, who wants to pay for those (pate and truffles), not me. Also, I didn’t check, but I bet Wal-Mart doesn’t even sell pate or truffles. And that’s where I was shopping today. Overall, it was very good, very flavorful, and apart from a lot of little steps it’s actually very easy to put together. Although next time I think I’ll stick with the portabella mushrooms, only way more of them, and cook them longer. And also better meat. It was a teeny bit tough, while there was a nice amount of fat on the outside, there was little to no marbling. I knew it wouldn’t be as tender when I saw it in the store, but it was the best looking one there. Which is why I’ve decided to start going to butcher shops when I’m cooking meat centric meals, and why I didn’t cook it longer.
