Annual Christmas Beef Wellington

This year, for Christmas dinner, my father and I made our annual Beef Wellington. When I say annual, this is really only the third year or so that we have made it, still...it's quickly becoming a family tradition.

Inspired by anything British and Gordon Ramsay, after watching a Christmas special of sorts, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at a Beef Wellington. Was it a crazy idea? Yes, a little. Did that stop me? Absolutely not!

Using Gordon Ramsay's recipe as a guide, I have slowly begun to master what is a very traditional British dish. Fluffy pastry, rich pate, and juicy meat...it's like happiness wrapped and baked in an oven! This year, due to crazy busy schedules and a lack of certain ingredients, my father and I had to make some compromises and this wellington was not as good as my past endeavors, however, it was still pretty damn tasty. The recipe I will share with you is my main recipe without the deviations. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

- about 2 lb of roasting beef (we used filet mignon)

- about 10 slices prosciutto (to be safe)

- 1 box Pepperidge Farm puff pastry sheets

- 1 package baby portobello mushrooms, washed/cleaned

- 1/2 container of pate

- olive oil, for browning the meat

- garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon English mustard

- 1 egg, beaten

Direction:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Prepare the mushrooms. Clean and chop. 

Place the mushrooms into a food processor 

You want to puree your mushrooms

3. Once the mushrooms are done, in a piping hot DRY frying pan, allow the mushrooms to sit. This is to allow any moisture to escape.

Once the mushrooms are dry and sticking together, remove from heat and allow to cool. 

4. Season the meat.

5. Put olive oil in pan and heat. Once pan is piping hot, brown the meat. This will seal in the flavor. 

Once the meat is browned, remove from heat and allow to cool.

6. Coat the meat with English mustard. (I had the powdered kind that I needed to liquify) 

7. Mix the pate and mushrooms.

8. On a separate space, roll out some cling film. Place the prosciutto on the cling film, but have them overlap slightly. Unfortunately, this year, we couldn't get any prosciutto, but here is a picture from last year!  Once your proscuitto is layed out, cover with the pate/mushroom mixture.

Alternatively, if you are in the same boat or just don't like prosciutto, you can place the pate onto the pastry. See the next following step.

9. Attach the two pieces of puff pastry using egg wash as a glue.

In this case, as mentioned above, you can add the pate directly here too

10. Place your beef in the center and roll the pastry around it. You may need to play around with the orientation; see which way wraps around the beef the best. 

Be sure to punch the sides down!

11. Score the wellington. It will a) allow some heat to escape, while keeping in the flavor and b) it looks really nice when it is baked.

12. Cover the Wellington in egg wash. This will give your dish a nice golden brown color as it bakes.

13. Allow the Wellington to bake in the oven for at least 30 min. Keep and eye on it to ensure the crust doesn't burn. If you crust does start to burn, simply cover it loosely with some aluminum foil. When your dish is done, it should look like this...

That is a thing of beauty!