Beef Wellington (Pic thread - a la MeridianDog)

I've been trying to make dishes I've never made before each time I cook, so Saturday night, I tried my hand at Beef Wellington.

I spent the day Saturday frantically store hopping, and was unable to find 100% duck or goose liver for the recipe, so I had to use a duck and pork blend..



It worked fine for me.

Beef Wellington is a multi-step process, beginning with the duxelles. You want to do these first so they're completely cool when ready to use.

Here's what you'll need:



Begin with roughly chopping the mushrooms, shallot, and garlic.



De-leaf the fresh thyme and place all in food processor and pulse until very very fine (almost a paste).

I actually pulsed a little too much and got a pastey result, but it really doesn't matter that much.





Heat your butter and olive oil in a pan, and cook your mixture until the mushrooms are a nice dark brown. Since my mixture was pastey, I just cooked until the mixture was brown

Season to taste, and your duxelles is done. Set it aside so it cools completely.

At this point, you would move on to step two and make the dough for the wellington. I hate baking and honestly didn't find this super necessary. So I just had puff pastry dough thawing.

Next, we move on to the meat. The filets were on sale at Fresh Market, so I got these two for $22 total. No idea if that's a good price because I don't buy filets, but it was less than I anticipated spending, so that was nice.



I stopped in at Red Stick Spice Company (this store is awesome) and chose this seasoning blend for the filets.





At this point it was time to pour a glass of wine. You can only make it so long without..



Now it's time to sear the filets.



About a minute on each side.



^ That filet had a weird hanging guy. I pulled him off later.



Once seared, spread a thick layer of the foie gras on each filet, and then top with your duxelles mixture.

Place the filets with the topped side down on your pastry dough.



And gently make bundles.. pinching together.



Glaze in your beaten egg wash.



And bake!

Now I must warn you .. I kept them rare. About 15-18 minutes. If you want med-rare, you can go longer. I prefer med-rare, but I was so afraid of overcooking and my thermometer was acting up.





I served with roasted asparagus.



A lot of people kept referencing the long process and how pricey this is to make. While it's not a weeknight meal for the working (wo)man, I didn't find it tedious at all. We always make a nice meal over the weekend as a date night, and we spend about the same (~$40 total) and some of the things we've made have taken much more work than this.

This was absolutely delicious. Jones just took off the pastry from a leftover filet and seared the meat. Got it to a nice med-rare and enjoyed. He actually liked it even better today.