Pages

▼

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Beef Wellington Bites

A traditional Beef Wellington is made with whole tenderloin wrapped in puff pastry along with mushrooms duxelles and foie gras. These beef Wellington bites are the finger food version made with choux pastry puffs.

Let me start by saying that this dish was the result of leftovers of the very best kind. I made duxelles for a different dish and ended up sharing it for a group post celebrating mushrooms. And I had frozen choux pastry from a croquembouche challenge. When a weekend barbecue left me with a couple of grilled filet mignon steaks, it suddenly came to me that I had the makings of beef Wellington of a sort and just needed some foie gras or liver paté. Oh, we dined richly that night! I'd been waiting for the ideal time to share them when Sunday Supper announced a Finger Food for Dinner theme. Perfect!

Make sure you scroll down to see all the wonderful fork-free dishes we are sharing today, from appetizers through desserts. Many thanks to our host Christie from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures and her guiding light, Marion from Life Tastes Good.

Ingredients
For the duxelles:
3 oz or 85g shallots
1/3 cup or 75g butter
12 oz or 340g mushrooms
1 cup or 240ml dry white wine
1 cup or 240ml whipping cream
Sea salt
Black pepper
- Instructions here  You may not use the whole recipe. Stir the rest through some pasta. Or eat it with a spoon.

For the choux pastry:
1 cup or 125g plain flour
1 pinch salt
7 tablespoons or 100g butter
1 cup or 240ml water
4 eggs, at room temperature
- The dough makes about 50 small choux buns. They freeze well before baking!

For assembly: Makes 18 Beef Wellington Bites
6 oz or 170g grilled tenderloin steak
6 oz or 170g smooth duck or pork paté, at room temperature

Method
Make your duxelles ahead of time and store the bowl in the refrigerator. Do not leave it out as you work, because its volume will greatly decrease, spoon by spoon, if it's handy. That stuff is GOOD.

Now we'll make the choux pastry. Preheat your oven to 445°F or 230°C and prepare your baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper stuck down with a little non-stick spray. If you are feeling particularly anal, as I usually am, you can draw some circles to guide you on the underside of the parchment paper.

Sift together your flour and a pinch of salt and put the bowl right next to the stove in readiness.

In a medium pot, combine the butter and water and bring to the boil.



Pour the flour/salt mixture into the boiling water/butter all at once. Stir vigorously until the mixture forms a ball and pulls right away from the sides. This takes just a minute or two.



Now take the pot off of the stove and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well with your wooden spoon in between. With each addition, it looks like the egg won’t mix in and the dough starts to fall apart but keep mixing and after a couple of minutes of hard labor, the dough comes together again in one big lump and it’s time to add the next egg.


After the fourth egg has been thoroughly incorporated, put the dough into a piping bag with a large tip, about 1/2 in or 1 cm wide.

Pipe the soft dough on the parchment paper in 1 inch or 2.5cm circles about an equal measure apart from each other.


Poke down any pointy tops with a damp finger.


Bake in your preheated oven for 10 minutes then turn the temperature down to 400°F or 200°C and bake for a further 25 minutes. (OR you can now pop them in the freezer if you want to keep some for later.  You only need 18 for the Beef Wellington Bites. Once frozen, slip them off the parchment and into a Ziploc bag for storage. They are perfect for sweet or savory fillings and can be taken out of the freezer and baked as you need them.)

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Once they are completely cooled, store them in an airtight container until you are ready to serve.

When you are ready to serve, warm your duxelles and your tenderloin steaks. Slice the steaks thinly.



Split the choux buns open horizontally. Add a good spoon of the duxelles to the bottom. Top with sliced steak and finally, add a small slice of paté.



Put the top of the choux bun back on and repeat the process until all the Beef Wellington Bites are assembled.

Enjoy!



Do you enjoy Finger Foods for Dinner? I think they are great for movie nights but in our house we also always do all appetizers for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve as well.

I want everything on this list!

Pinky Appetizers
Manual Mains
Digit Desserts


 .
at

No comments :

Post a Comment

Where in the world are you? Leave me a comment! It makes me happy to know you are out there.