Individual Beef Wellingtons

Tonight is my sweetie’s last night in KL before HIS official move to Cairo.  I’ll stay on a little longer to organize the packing up and prepare for Christmas here with elder and younger daughters.  Also, he sold his own car today, which he loved, so tonight called for a special compensatory meal.  We were given some filet mignon a few weeks back, which was just hanging out in the already too-full freezer so Beef Wellington came to mind.

Ingredients
25g (or about three tablespoons once they are minced) shallots

35g or 2 1/2 tablespoons butter

125g or 4.5 oz button mushrooms

2 sheets butter puff pastry

2 filet mignon steaks (150-160g or 5.3-5.6 oz each)

1/2 cup or 120ml dry white wine

1/2 cup or 120ml cream

1/2 chicken stock cube

90g or 3.2 oz fine pork or duck liver pâté or mousse

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 egg for the egg wash

Method

Finely chop the shallots and mushrooms.  Sauté gently with the butter until the mushrooms are cooked down and then the liquid is almost all gone.

Add the 1/2 cup white wine and simmer again.

Meanwhile, dry off the steaks and sear them for one minute on each side in a very hot pan.  Put them back in the refrigerator to chill.

Remove your puff pastry sheets from the freezer and thaw in the refrigerator.

Once almost all the liquid is gone again in the mushroom pan, add the 1/2 cup of thick cream, the 1/2 chicken stock cube, a few good grinds of fresh black pepper, and simmer.  

When it is very dry once more, remove from the heat and chill in the refrigerator.

Cut your pâté into two equal pieces. Keep chilled until ready to assemble the Wellingtons. Or the Beefs. I don't know how to shorten the name. Let's go with Wellingtons. 

To assemble the Wellingtons:  Put a piece of cling wrap straight on your counter top.  Put the thawed puff pasty on top of this.  Pull off the plastic that separates the puff pastry squares.

In a small bowl, beat your egg and add a little bit of water to make an egg wash.  Brush the egg wash all over the pastry square. 

Add half of the mushroom mixture (formally known as duxelles – why Beef Wellington, the quintessential English dish should have a French sub-ingredient, who knows? I object so I will continue to call it the mushroom mixture.  Just didn’t want my readers to remain in the dark.) in the middle of the pastry. 

Pop the steak on top and give it a gentle push down into the mushroom mixture.  Give it a good sprinkle of salt and pepper. 

Top the steak with the pâté.

Start folding in the pastry, corner by corner, getting it as tight as you can, with as little air as you can manage between the pastry and the meat.

Transfer them, using your cling film, to a baking pan.  Brush the little Wellingtons with your egg wash.

These can be kept in the refrigerator for an hour or two, until you are ready to bake them.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 425°F or 220°C.  Put your baking tray into the oven and set the timer for 20 minutes. 

After 20 minutes, test the steaks inside with an instant read thermometer.  Rare should read around 130° or 54°C, medium rare up to 140° or 60°C, medium up to 150° or 65°C.  If you cook tenderloin more than that, I don’t want to know about it. :)

Serve with red wine sauce (As you will notice, I used just the red wine sauce recipe here.) and the roasted vegetable of your choice. 

Enjoy!