New Year’s Eve Beef Wellington
In what has pretty much become a solid tradition for me, it was New Year’s Eve and that meant one thing: Beef Wellington. I don’t think I’ve cooked this at any other time of year…! Last year we went round to my brother’s and cooked it there. The trouble is, once we’re in the same household together the inevitability of something fizzy and alcoholic being opened is… well… inevitable.
The problem with that, is that by the time construction of the wellington begins, everything goes very wonky and “best efforts”.
So this year I decided, I’ll make them in advance, so we can just take them around and chuck them in the oven. Boom, done. Beef Wellington, New Year’s Eve, perfect.
I’ll give you a slight spoiler: they still didn’t come out quite how we planned, and this might have also been fizzy alcohol related.
So, rewind to the night (well… day) before. I’d got in a whole fillet from the butchers, and armed with my new knife (which is a boning knife but I was eager to try it out) I started to trim the fillet.
I remember when I did this last year, I was surprised at just how much fat there is in a fillet! But nothing goes to waste. The trim was all saved for the red wine sauce and I was left with this:
There were some fairly big chunks in the bowl, where I’d committed to the cut before realising I was trimming more than just fat… (that knife was really sharp) but I got the end result I wanted. Two pieces about 750g each, and one about 250g as a steak.
Because of how I’d trimmed it – the left piece was two separate pieces, but a bit of butcher string sorted that out for the initial stages. So, ready to sear!
I had my son helping, so whilst he was searing that, I got to starting on the duxelle:
Now that looks like a lot of mushroom, but experience has taught me this really doesn’t go far.
All chopped, I fried it for about 15 minutes or so, until they were very much reduced and as close to a paste as I was going to get (I didn’t chop them anywhere near finely enough, which I was conscious of at the time and in hindsight I should have slapped myself and said ‘get on with it’). Anyway, once cooked up – I laid out the parma ham. I was a little annoyed actually, one pack of the parma ham (the one on the right) was a lot fattier and fell apart a lot more than the other. My fault for not looking closely before I bought it, I suppose!
So, I spread out half the mushroom over the parma ham and wrapped the fillet. Now, I actually moved the fillet to the left after I’d taken this pic, so that as I wrapped the fillet I ensured it was fully surrounded by the duxelle.
I repeated for the second fillet (after cutting the butcher string off) and wrapped and stashed in the fridge whilst I prepped the pastry. For ease (i.e. laziness) I had some ready rolled puff pastry – I stuck two sheets together to give me tons of pastry (as again having done this badly so many times, not having enough to completely cover the wellington is a pain in the backside). I made a fair bit of overlap to ensure as good a seal as possible, and also used egg wash to help seal it.
The egg was simply 3 egg yolks beaten. After about 20 minutes of the fillets chilling in the fridge, out they came and went into the pastry:
In hindsight, I really need to practice/plan for the shape of the pastry better. I wasn’t happy with how they looked but at this stage, nothing you can do. I had trimmed a lot of excess pastry before completely folding (which we then baked separately with some chocolate which my kids called “chocolate wellingtons”).
I gave them an egg wash, wrapped in clingfilm, and left to chill until heading to my brothers the next day:
Now I forgot to take a photo before putting them in the oven (hic) and I nearly forgot getting them out. Oh, and to ensure they were perfectly cooked I took my meater, so I’d get a watch notification when they’re done. This did require me to take them out when it told me… which… I might not have done (oops… hic…) but nevertheless:
The left one says BEEF, the right is just a criss-cross. These had sat out for some time before putting them in the oven, and I wonder if they should have been kept in the fridge as I’m not sure if that affected how the pastry cooked (I’m far from expert on the matter). However, there was one good thing: there was not one soggy bit of pastry. Woohoo.
So then I sliced it and immediately regretted not taking them out when I should have done. However, it was tasty, juicy and overall – a success.
But next time when the Meater+ says “REMOVE FROM HEAT!” I shall put down the glass and get it out the bloody oven….!
Happy New Year everyone!
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