Modern British · Main
Beef Wellington
Portion-sized Wellingtons for plated charter service — every guest gets their own perfect cross-section, no carving roulette
- Prep
- 60 min
- Cook
- 45 min
- Serves
- 4
Ingredients
- Centre-cut beef fillet — 4 x 160 g portions
- Olive oil — 20 ml
- English mustard — 20 g
- Chestnut mushrooms — 500 g, minced
- Shallots — 60 g, minced
- Thyme leaves — 3 g
- Madeira — 150 ml (50 ml duxelles, 100 ml jus)
- Parma ham — 8 slices (100 g)
- All-butter puff pastry — 500 g
- Egg yolks — 2, beaten with 5 ml water
- Beef stock — 400 ml
- Unsalted butter — 25 g, cold
- Fine sea salt — 6 g; black pepper — 2 g
Method
- Season fillets; sear in smoking oil 45 seconds per face until crusted but raw inside. Brush with mustard; chill.
- Duxelles: cook mushrooms, shallots and thyme in a dry wide pan over high heat, stirring, 10–12 minutes until bone-dry. Add 50 ml Madeira; reduce to nothing. Season; cool completely.
- On cling film, lay 2 overlapping ham slices, spread a quarter of the duxelles, sit a fillet on top and wrap into a tight parcel. Chill 20 minutes.
- Roll pastry to 3 mm; cut four squares. Unwrap parcels, envelope each in pastry, sealing seams underneath. Chill 30 minutes.
- Heat oven to 210°C with a tray inside. Egg-wash twice; score lightly and salt the pastry.
- Bake on the hot tray 22–25 minutes until deep gold and the core reads 48–50°C. Rest 8 minutes (carryover to ~54°C, medium-rare).
- Jus: reduce 100 ml Madeira by half, add stock, reduce to 150 ml; mount with cold butter, season.