My recipes are vague as anything, as I never really weigh anything or do anything in any detailed way, but here goes. I'm more of a chuck it in and taste, but I have shared this recipe many many times with utterly fantastic results... it's the shit.
My all time favourite has to be this beef wellington recipe. Why? Because my god it's tasty, and it's sure to impress anyone you serve it to. Everyone seems to think of a beef wellington as out of the realms of possibility to an amateur cook, but no. It's really quite easy!
Let's get started...
You will need:
- 1 Beef fillet, whatever size you want to eat, obvs. I go for about 250g per serving, but that's a chunk. 1kg should serve 6, but you know... meat is tasty.
- Mushrooms (I like chestnut mushrooms, but button will do), do about half a tub? A whole 500g did my weekend one serving 6.
- Glass of white wine. Or, bottle, and drink the rest.
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed.
- Some butter
- thyme, dried.
- Proscuitto ham (enough to cover your meat, get 16 slices, you can eat the rest out the packet with the wine.)
- Dijon or wholegrain mustard. I use wholegrain, but do what you fucking like.
- Puff pastry. Enough to cover your beef, obviously. Shop bought, don't fuck about making it.
- 1 egg.
How to do it:
Get your mushrooms on first. Dice the fuckers up, or put them in a food processor. You don't want them a paste, but a small dice. Slap them in a frying pan on medium heat with some salt, pepper, butter, thyme, the crushed garlic and slowly start to cook them down. You don't want to fry them, you want them to cook right down. This will take like 20 mins. After about 5 mins, slap in your glass of white wine, swig some out the bottle. Get your own glass and think "fucking nailing this". The wine will cook off and you should be a dark colour and no liquid left. You'll be like pasting this on, so it should be that consistency. Once that's done, slap it in a bowl set it to one side to cool down.
The meat. Meat wise, rub some oil on your fillet, salt and pepper that bad boy while you're heating a frying pan. Get that fucker hot. Then you just want to sear the outside of the meat, all round including the ends. Just to get some colour on it not to cook it. Shouldn't take more than a few mins. Again, set this aside to cool down. You want it all cool before putting it together. Fridge it if it speed it up.
Now to construct the fucker. Piss easy. Clingfilm on the worktop, lay up two sheets overlapping if your welly is going to be a corker. Then lay on the proscuitto like you're laying roof tiles. 2 rows, overlapping, go along 4 slices. No gaps. Lovely. Spread on your mushroom paste mix on top of the ham. Should cover the area your beef will take up.
Then get your beef, spread on the outside of it with the mustard of your choosing and slap it on the edge of your mushroom pasted area/ ham and tightly roll it up in the cling film, covering the whole thing with ham. Roll it up at the ends like a meaty christmas cracker and slap it in the fridge. Will chill it and keep it's shape ready to be covered in pastry later. You can do this the day before if you're going to be too shitfaced to do it on the day.
When you're ready to rock and roll, get it out the fridge, slap your pastry on the worktop and cover the fucker, once you've removed the cling film, obviously, but you're not a dick. Use the egg, beaten, as an egg wash over the top. You want to make sure the pastry covers the wellington with no gaps, it'll help it cook.
Cooking wise, is somewhat dependant on the size, the 1.6kg one I did I cooked for 40mins and rested for 20 after. If you're doing 1kg or thereabouts, I'd cook about 30 mins, rest 15. If you're going smaller, I'd adjust accordingly. I tend to just judge on size at the time. Always give it resting time though. Will continue to cook it and make the meat relax. You want to cook it at 200c.
Carve that prick up and rejoice at the wonder that it tastes like. Your guests will be foaming at the gash.
