16:11 Aug 16 2016
Times Read: 926
For Dinner Tonight since I have the day off:
Beef Wellington a la Dakotah(I call this dish "beef tenderloin en croute ("on croot") with oyster mushroom duxelle". Sounds better.)
Background information: This recipe is written as though the reader is a complete novice. No, I don't think you're stupid; I just want to make sure you do this right and get the results you want. I am making this with Buffalo but Venison and Beef is fine too, and wild mushrooms that I foraged, which makes it awesome. Conversely, I use store-bought puff pastry instead of making pastry dough to save myself some effort. I like my meat medium-rare, and this is certainly the best way to serve venison (or buffalo), which is a leaner meat and prone to toughness if cooked much longer. It's important to brown the meat before you put it into the pastry because you can give the meat a chance to "rest" which will minimize the juices leaking all out into the pastry making it soggy. Joy of Cooking skips this step, but it's imperative that you obey me here. Also, by the time the pastry is golden brown and delicious, the meat will be perfect and not bloody or tough. Get the best wild mushrooms you can get to make this dish really special, but if you can't find 'em, portabellas or cremini will work fine."En croute" is French for "in a crust", I think, and duxelle is a traditional mushroom paste commonly used in crepes.
Serve with a petite syrah or a nice shiraz.
Step 1: make the duxelle
8 oz mushrooms, cleaned
1.5 tbsp butter
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsps finely minced shallots
1 tbsp dry sherry or Madiera, or a dry red wine if that's all you have
1/4 cup heavy cream
S&P to taste
pinch nutmeg
Mince the fuck out of the mushrooms until they're practically a fine powder (if you have a food processor you're golden). Squeeze small handfuls (1/4 cup at a time) to get all the moisture out of 'em to extract the bitter juices. They'll be in a solid lump if you've done it right. Heat butter and oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until the foam subsides. Add shallots and cook for a minute or two. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring often until they've begun to brown, 5 or 6 minutes. Add sherry and cook until completely evaporated. Turn off stove and add cream, S&P and nutmeg. Set aside to cool. If you can afford it, you can add a few ounces of foie gras to this mixture which will likely lead to you getting oral sex from the person you're serving this to.
Step 2: prepare beef
1 center-cut filet of beef or chateaubriand (or 1 venison tenderloin, I am using Buffalo), trimmed of fat and tendony thingies
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsps olive oil
In a pan large enough to accommodate the beef, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Salt and pepper the beef, and gently lay the meat in the pan. The point here is to get a nice sear and some browning (maillard) on the meat before you put it in the pastry. After a minute, using tongs, roll the beef and repeat until browned on all sides (including the two ends). Remove meat with tongs and set on a large plate to rest for 10 minutes. DO NOT RINSE OUT PAN. You'll use it later, and you want all the yummy brown bits that the French call "fond" for the sauce.
Step 3: Assembly
1 package puff pastry sheets, thawed
1 large egg
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp milk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk egg, water and milk together into an eggwash. Set aside. Lay out pastry dough on a large baking sheet that's been lined with parchment (or lightly grease the baking sheet). Spread the duxelle onto the meat to make a layer about 1/4" thick that completely surrounds the meat. Fold the pastry gently up and around the meat, wrapping into a neat little package. Trim any excess dough. Roll the package so the seam side is down, and then brush lightly with the egg wash. With a toothpick or skewer, artfully poke two or three evenly-spaced holes in the top of the pastry to allow steam to vent. Slide the masterpiece into the oven and bake until the crust is golden, about 35 minutes.
If you really must ruin your meat by cooking it past medium-rare, then just loosely lay some foil on top when it's brown and finish until a meat thermometer reads the following temperatures:
120-125 for rare
125-130 for medium rare
135-140 for medium
But please, for the love of god, do not cook it past medium or you'll have a big old mess when you try to slice it, and you will not get the oral sex. You shouldn't have to use foil if you're only going to medium-rare or rare. Let sit, uncovered, for 15 to 20 minutes.
Step 4: The Sauce
You should make this while the meat is in the oven, so everything will be done at once.
1 cup beef stock (or broth)
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp juniper berries
1 tsp allspice berries
4 or 5 cloves
1" piece of cinnamon stick
salt to taste
Heat a small pan (not the one you used to brown the beef) over medium-high heat. Place the spices in the dry pan and kinda shake the pan like you're making popcorn until the spices start to release their wonderful fragrances. Remove pan from heat and place the meat-browning pan on the burner that's still turned on. Deglaze the pan by stirring the red wine into it, scraping with a wooden spoon and stirring to dissolve all that good stuff. Add the juice from the rested meat, the stock, balsamic and toasted spices and simmer until liquid is reduced by about half. It should be somewhat thick and syrupy. Salt to taste. Strain out spices with a fine-mesh sieve, through cheesecloth or through a coffee filter if that's all you have. This sauce is awesome as a pan gravy for any red meat, by the way.
* * *
Slice wellington into inch-thick slices. Drizzle sauce into a puddle near the slices, or however you think it'll look awesome.
Recommended side dishes:
pan-fried new potatoes with parsley
green beans with citrus zest
Make side dishes while the wellington is baking/resting.
Potatoes: boil while wellington is baking, and then finish while it's resting
Figure about two baby potatoes per person. I like Yukon gold, but any small white potato is fine. Peel a strip of the skin of so there's a ring of peeled potato around the middle, with just the tender skin on the ends. Place potatoes in a pot of cold, salted water and bring to boil. Cook the potatoes until fork tender, then strain. Melt a fat pat of butter in a pan until it starts to foam, and add potatoes. Brown on all sides, and sprinkle with fresh minced parsley when serving. Crack a little pepper on that shit.
Green beans: cook when wellington is resting
Trim ends off beans, and blanch in boiling water just until they turn bright green. Shock in a bath of ice water to stop cooking. Melt some butter and sauté beans for about 3 minutes, basically until they're tender. Add S&P, and sprinkle with fresh orange or lemon zest. To get zest, just use the fine part of a cheese grater (or obviously if you have a microplate zester use it), grating off only the outer, colored part of the rind.
Bon appetit!
COMMENTS
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WickedWitch
20:06 Aug 18 2016
Sounds yummy!!!