Next, I roll out the second sheet to give me enough pastry for the six individual steaks. I dip the entire cutout in egg wash to attach it to the tops of the steaks. These days, I use tiny cookie cutters (available at most cooking supply stores) to add leaves, stars, pumpkins or other seasonal decorations. In cooking class, we learned how to roll the scraps into rosettes. The scraps of leftover pastry are perfect for making cutouts to decorate the Wellingtons. I save all the trimmings from the pastry. I use an egg wash to hold the pastry together, like glue. The assembly goes like this: I wrap one pastry sheet around the larger tenderloin, usually folding the pastry around the meat and tucking it in on the sides. I make sure I sear each side to give the meat a good color when it's cut and more flavor and crust on the outside of the steaks. Explore all your optionsīefore I start the assembly, I sear each piece of meat in a very hot pan on the stove. ![]() Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started. Once I am finished with the duxelles, my relatives don't even realize they are eating mushrooms. These are easy enough to chop by hand, but I use a food processor to make sure the pieces are minced because some members of my family aren't fans of mushrooms. In general, the duxelles is a blend of mushrooms (I use whatever looks good on the produce aisle, usually button mushrooms) onions or shallots (I prefer shallots because of the more intense flavor) garlic (1 to 2 cloves) butter and fresh herbs (I usually use flat parsley or thyme). First step is to make the duxelles - a French-inspired mushroom mixture that coats the Wellingtons and offers a layer of texture between the meat and the pastry dough. When I prepare my beef Wellingtons, I like to get everything ready and then do the assembling. (I used the ground beef in my homemade spaghetti sauce). In the end, that tenderloin gave me three dinner entrees and a large tray of appetizers. Within 15 minutes, the beautifully wrapped package was waiting for me on the counter along with a pound and a half of ground beef from the trimmings. I walked up to the meat counter on a routine grocery run and asked the butcher to trim and tie the loin. And, Williams-Sonoma offers four 8-ounce portions for $99.95 plus shipping.įor my most recent beef Wellingtons, I bought a whole tenderloin (about 5 pounds) from Publix for $73.31. At Omaha Steaks, individual 7-ounce beef Wellingtons sell for $24.75 each before shipping. HoneyBaked Ham's three-pound Wellington sells for $94.95, not including shipping. I have ordered them from Williams-Sonoma and HoneyBaked Ham. Many companies also offer frozen beef Wellingtons online. ![]() I generally use Pepperidge Farm's option (usually about $5.99 for a 17.3-ounce box of two sheets) because it's the easiest brand to find in the freezer at all my regular shopping spots. All four would work for beef Wellington, and all four are available at local grocery stores. Our Taster's Choice judges recently sampled four brands of puff pastry ranging in price from $3.24 to $9.99 for two sheets. I have never felt guilty about continuing that practice. Even though we were taught the difficult regime of making puff pastry by layering thin sheets of butter and pastry and rolling and folding dough for what seemed like an eternity, our chef instructor gave us permission to substitute storebought pastry. ![]() I first learned to prepare the dish while taking a yearlong cooking class in 2003. Either way, it's a definite contender for Christmas Eve. Maybe it's in my DNA, being born in England, where meat cooked inside pastry is a staple. And while I love to eat food prepared by good cooks, the pastry-wrapped tenderloin of beef is one of my own favorite, go-to holiday meals. Beef Wellington is one of those show-stopping entrees that often looks harder to make it than it actually is.
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