Recipe: Beef Wellington

This was one of the dishes I prepared for my late mother. She told me that she wanted to have beef wellington. The funny thing about that was that I have never ate or saw what a beef wellington was before this. Thus, I had to make this dish with no idea what it was supposed to look like or taste!

For this recipe, I decided to consult Gordon Ramsay’s version of the beef wellington as my base.

Ingredients

For the dish
1.1kg Chilled Beef Tenderloin
Olive Oil
500g Mixed Mushrooms (I got a random 3-in-1 pack)
A packet of Thyme leaves
2 slices of puff pastry
6 pieces of Spanish Parma Ham
2 eggs beaten together with a pinch of salt and a spoonful of water
Salt and Pepper

For the Red Wine Sauce
Olive Oil
180g beef trimmings (or, as I found it being called in the market, Soup Meat)
4 large shallots
Black Peppercorns
Bay leaf
A bunch of thyme
1 bottle of red wine (750ml)
1 carton of beef stock (300ml)

Instructions
Step 1: Finely chop up your mushrooms and shallots. Pluck the leaves off your thyme. Tip: By pinching the thyme and sliding down in the right direction (Either up or down, I am sure you can figure it out), you can ‘peel’ off most of the leaves easily.

Step 2: Sear your beef until it is brown on the outside and rare on the inside. This should take about a minute or two. Then, remove it from the pan and leave it to cool.

Step 3: Place your chopped mushrooms into a pan with some olive oil, some thyme leaves, some salt and some black pepper.

Step 4: Continue to cook until the mushrooms release all its juices and becomes a dry paste of sorts. It is known as a duxelle. Then, remove it from the pan and leave it to cool.

Step 5: Lay down a large sheet of cling wrap on your workspace.

Step 6: Lay down your Parma Ham in the center of the cling wrap. Try and spread out the ham to cover as much of the center as possible with some minor overlapping.

Step 7: Evenly spread the duxelle over the ham.

Step 8: Add some seasoning to your Beef Fillets. Then, put them on the duxelle. Then, using the cling film, wrap the Parma Ham around the fillets. Then, chill for around 30 minutes. During which, you’d want to start on the Red Wine Sauce (Refer below).

Step 9: Take out your puff pastries and brush on the egg wash on both sides of the pastry.

Step 10: Carefully place the beef wrap onto the puff pastry, removing the cling wrap.

Step 11: Stick it in the oven at 200C until the pastry puff is golden brown. Every few minutes, pull it out of the oven for a quick basting.

Step 12: Let it rest for 10 minutes out of the oven when deemed cooked. Then, you may carve it and serve with the Red Wine Sauce.

Red Wine Sauce

Step 1: Fry the beef trimmings until they are brown. Stir in your shallots, pepper, bay leaf and thyme. Continue to cook until it becomes a little brown.

Step 2: Add your red wine. Let it boil and reduce for a bit.

Step 3: Add your beef stock and bring to boil.

Step 4: Lower the heat and simmer for around 1 hour.

Step 5: Sift out the chunky bits with a sieve.

Step 6: Heat it up and add some potato starch to increase the thickness of the sauce. Then, add some more seasoning