Beef Wellington

Here is my step by step photo thread on it.

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they do seem pretty simple to make.

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I found it time consuming, and I love to make more complex meals. If you don't cook often, I definitely wouldn't rate it on the "beginner" scale, but yeah.. it wasn't "hard" either. And I even took a shortcut by using puff pastry rather than making my own dough.

Where is a good local place to get this instead of cooking?

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Beef Wellington

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Slightly off topic, but several years ago my son and I were going to climb Mt. Whitney in the Sierra Nevada. There's a restaurant in Lone Pine, CA,, at the base of Mt. Whitney, called "Seasons". It's a serious restaurant with a serious chef. Anyway, the chef often serves game the restaurant buys off of local hunters. The night we ate there they chef had made Elk Wellington from an elk shot somewhere up in the Eastern Sierra. Unreal good!

Ok, carry on.

Guy on Serious Eats did an in-depth report on it a few years ago. Here it is LINK

I did it. In all honesty, it isnt that good of a dish. If you like steak and foie gras (and who doesn't besides, heathen vegans) make Tournedos Rossini. Its a better dish. If you dont want to make it, go to Galatoire's and order a filet with foie gras and marchand du vin.

ETA: LL no one, not even hungryone, should ever make their own puff pastry.

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In all honesty, it isnt that good of a dish

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I actually was somewhat weirded out by it

Ever since childhood, I've had this weird phobia of hollow items. You should see me with hollow chocolate bunnies on Easter. The pastry with creamy texture between it and the meat is a bit odd. I'm proud of how it came out, but I realized I'm not a huge Wellington person.

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I even took a shortcut by using puff pastry

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The pastry can be the trickiest part because if it's still slightly frozen, you risk breaking the sheet. If it gets too warm, it's hard to work with. Yes, it is very time consuming to make the duxelle and cool completely, sear off the filets and cool completely, assemble, needing to sit even more in the fridge. If the pastry is too thick, it gets gummy and looses its affect on the dish. If you can make it through the painstaking part unscathed, you can simply whack it into the oven the day of, making sure there's some sort of sauce of course. Because it goes into the oven directly from the fridge, you retain that beautiful medium rare (provided you nail a slightly under midrare during the inital sear) while crisping up the outer shell, brushed with egg of course.

It's an extremely impressive dish for guests, including the ease of cooking the day of, but it is a bit risky.