Beef Wellington—or “Welly,” as some chefs call it—is intimidating. A true test of a chef’s abilities, it takes front stage in the windows of the pret a manger shops in Paris, and on the menus of the top fine dining restaurants around the world. It is, in a word, a real banger.
And it’s not that hard. Really. Beef Wellington is just a beef tenderloin, seared off, wrapped in layers of herbs, mushrooms, charcuterie and puff pastry. The goal is for the meat to stay moist, the pastry to stay crisp, and then you cut into it and see these rings of gorgeous color. Each bite should have a little of each component, so you get the salt from the charcuterie, the depth of mushrooms, the soft flavor of the beef and the crispy pastry. Here are the tips and tricks at each juncture, as navigated through welly master Calum Franklin’s recipe from The Pie Room.
Sweating the 'shrooms
The step: This recipe calls for 35oz of mushrooms, which you then turn into a duxelle, which is French for “this is going to take forever and you will probably undershoot it."The goals here are uniformity and dryness. You want the mushrooms to have lost all their moisture, because the moisture will get trapped in the wellington, and cause the pastry to not crisp up.
The first hack: Calum suggests cutting mushrooms by hand into a fine dice since the food processor doesn’t provide uniformity, but we are only allotted so many years in this life, so break mushrooms down into similarly sized chunks with your hands, and only fill your food processor ¼ full, and then pulse until you see small, uniform pieces. Dump these into a bowl and keep going until you’ve processed them all.
The second hack: The best way to get all of the moisture out of the mushrooms is to be continually scooping the duxelle, flipping it over and smooshing it down. This releases the most moisture while moving everything around consistently so you don’t burn, and allows you to check how much moisture there really is. Make sure you’re moving around the whole pan in a circle, either clockwise or counter-clockwise.
The layered base
The step: To make the flat sheet of ingredients you’ll wrap around your tenderloin, you need to build it on plastic film. The cookbook recommends a 14” x 20” rectangle.
The first hack: The sheet only needs to be as wide as the tenderloin you buy, and only as deep as the circumference of that tenderloin, so buy the meat first, and then calculate how big the sheet needs to be.
The second hack: Once you know the size, take a piece of parchment, which usually has a grid printed on it, fold it to the right size, and lay it under your cling film, so you can always see what space you’re trying to fill. You can repurpose the parchment later in the recipe.
Don’t overbuy the meat
The step: Create the first layer of the base by making a continuous sheet of charcuterie. Usually, this is prosciutto but Calum recommends bresaola instead, which is basically a prosciutto of beef instead of pork. He contends it allows the beef flavor to shine. While I concur, bresaola is hard to find, so you can always fall back on prosciutto.
The first hack: Buying the prepackaged charcuterie will always cost more per ounce, so it’s far better to go to the deli counter and have them cut this meat for you fresh. Make sure they cut it as thin as possible.
The second hack: Take your piece of parchment with you to the shop, and explain to the person cutting the meat what you’re doing, so they fill a space exactly that size, and you know you have exactly as much as you need, but no more.
The third hack: As you lay down the bresaola, it has a shape to it. The key is to find the way the shapes interlock to make sure you can create a full sheet of meat without any holes in it. I had to rotate it around a few times and figure out that placing it on the diagonal worked best.
Fields of green
The step: Calum introduces a layer of spinach to the wellington that many recipes don't, but this gives the wellington a brilliant green against the red of the meat. Make a second layer of flat, steamed spinach leaves on top of the bresaola. Sounds simple, but cooking spinach is impossible to handle.
The hack: Take a wet paper towel, lay it on a plate, create the layer of clean spinach leaves while they’re dry and easy to handle. Arrange so you have no gaps and leaves are all facing one direction, cover it in another sheet of wet paper towel and microwave for 90 seconds. Once out of the microwave, peel off the top layer of paper towel, and then carefully invert (flop) the plate onto the bresaola sheet, and peel away the plate and paper towels. You’ll have transferred the sheet of spinach, intact. Now just repeat this process a few more times and move around the sheet of bresaola, until you’ve covered the whole sheet.
Flat as a pancake
The step: Layer the duxelle mushrooms on top of the spinach in a nice, even layer.
The hack: To make this a truly flat sheet, before you lay the mushrooms down, take the parchment square, slip it out from under the sheet, invert it onto the top of the spinach and use your rolling pin with medium pressure to roll across the top. The spinach won’t stick to the parchment, and it will do a very good job of flattening the bresaola and spinach. Now spoon the mushrooms onto the spinach closer to part of the sheet closest to you. Spread it out as best you can. Now put the wax paper back down and use the rolling pin, rolling away from you. This will compress the duxelle, and also spread it out evenly.
Sear the meat
The step: Salt and pepper the beef tenderloin, and then sear it off in a pan that fits it. Once seared, immediately paint with mustard.
The first hack: You don’t have a pan that fits it, so take a heavy-duty cookie sheet, lay it across the burners on your stove and use it as if it was a pan. An older sheet is great for this, because it may warp. Allow it to get nice and hot, making the smaller burner slightly higher heat to compensate for the bigger burner. This is a light sear; you just want color on every single side by giving it about five seconds and then rolling to the next side. Use two pairs of tongs to hold the tenderloin up to sear each end.
The second hack: Use your hands to get the mustard really onto the tenderloin, which will be more receptive because of the heat from the pan. Then let it cool while you complete the next steps.
Roll it up
The step: Roll the cooled beef tenderloin in the layered sheet so it is completely encased and then wrap it up and refrigerate to solidify.
The hack: Use the same method as sushi chefs– use the cling wrap to your advantage. Go slowly, but pull up the plastic wrap, and then pull it up towards the ceiling, and then away from you, to get a nice, even start to the roll. Then, before the roll goes all the way around, use pressure against the roll to ensure you’re rolling tightly, and then pull the plastic back so it doesn’t get caught in the roll, but continue to use it to get that nice, tight roll. At the end, you have the roll encased in the plastic. Use it to wrap up the wellington for the fridge.
Dough time
The step: Make the puff pastry. Roll out two sheets to create a lattice top. Encase the wellington in the uncut sheet first, and then cut lattice in the second sheet using alternating cuts. Carefully lay it on top of the first sheet, using egg wash to adhere it.
The first hack: Just buy puff pastry; there’s little honor in making it yourself. Once defrosted, fold the sheet into three (it will already have these folds, that’s how its frozen) and roll it out again from there, to eliminate those fold lines.
The second hack: Treat the wellington like a pie crust. There’s no law that says you need a lattice top, but if you want one, buy a lattice roller, they’re $9. If you try to lay other elements on the wellington, because it’s a roll, they tend to peel away, which is why people tend to use sheets instead, because they can be draped and then really stuck to the baking tray. When you lay the second sheet on, you want to ensure you really attach it to the first sheet where the roll meets the cooking tray, and then also pinch it down to the tray itself. You can try to cut the lattice by hand, but it's not worth the trouble, I'd suggest just using the single layer of pastry dough with no second layer.
Beef Wellington
(based on Calum Franklin’s recipe from The Pie Room)
Ingredients
2.5 lbs beef tenderloin
1 cup of vegetable oil
3 tablespoons of good quality mustard
2 bunches of spinach, as large leaf as you can find
One package of Pepperidge Farms puff pastry
3 eggs
35oz of mushrooms
2 shallots
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon each of thyme and rosemary
6.5 tablespoons Madeira wine
1 teaspoon of table salt
1 tablespoon of sea salt
Enough bresaola or prosciutto to fill the space you need for your cut of beef (around .2 lbs)
To make the duxelle, process the mushrooms in a food processor to uniform size and shape. Repeat with the shallots and garlic. Sweat the shallots and garlic in a non stick pan with 1.5 tbsp vegetable oil until translucent, then remove. Add mushrooms to pan with 1.5 tbsp oil and increase to high, add mushrooms and a dash of salt. Continue moving mushrooms around until all moisture is gone and mushrooms have developed a deep brown color. Add Madeira and reduce until the wine has evaporated. Return shallot and garlic, thyme and rosemary, then spread entire mixture across paper towels to dry further.
Dry the beef using paper towels, and season w table salt. Lay a sheet pan across two burners on stove and add 3 tablespoons of oil over high heat. Sear on all sides, never more than 5 seconds on a side. Allow to cool, and then use hands to massage in the mustard. Once fully cool, remove any string used to truss the meat.
Measure the length and width of the tenderloin. Fold a piece of parchment paper as long as the length plus five inches and as wide as 2.5 times the width of the tenderloin. Place this paper on a cutting board or flat surface. Cover with plastic wrap, leaving generous margins on all sides. This will require overlapping layers.
Lay out the bresola, overlapping as needed so there are no gaps, on the plastic wrap, using the parchment underneath as a template for the space to fill.
Steam spinach in batches on a plate with the spinach layered between wet paper towels, for ninety seconds in the microwave, and then transfer the sheets of spinach to the bresola, to create one uniform layer, then remove parchment.
Lay the parchment paper from under the plastic wrap over the spinach. Using a rolling pin, flatten the layered base by rolling across the parchment. Spread the duxelle across the spinach, and then lay the parchment back across the top and use the rolling pin to get an even layer of duxelle that completely covers the spinach. Remove parchment.
Lay beef horizontally on the edge of the layered sheet closest to you (the long way), cenetered. Use clingfilm to roll into a tight roll, and then wrap up in the plastic wrap, using more as needed and then refrigerate for at least eight hours.
Preheat oven to 400F and move rack to second position from the top of the oven, to allow room for the wellington beneath the elements.
Roll out two sheets of puff pastry, each on a sheet of parchment on a baking sheet. Place the second in the fridge to rest. Take out the wellington from the fridge and carefully unwrap. Taking great care, transfer to the pastry, along the edge closest to you (the long way) and repeating the same process as the day before, roll the wellington in the pastry. You only need enough pastry to complete the roll with about an inch extra to make sure it seals to itself. Fold the ends under the roll, trying to flatten them out as much as possible. Remove the parchment paper.
Make an egg wash with two of the eggs. Remove the second sheet of pastry from the fridge and use the lattice cutter the long way to make uniform cuts. Paint the entire roll with egg wash being generous. Carefully and lightly transfer the lattice sheet to the top of the roll, aligning down the middle of the roll. Now carefully begin pulling the lattice, starting from the middle out. It will move easily on the egg wash, but be gentle. Once it is open and draped well, seal the lattice to the pastry underneath where the roll meets the baking sheet, and push to seal it against the cooking tray itself. Refrigerate the roll, uncovered for thirty minutes.
Make an egg wash with the remaining egg, and now wash the entire roll and sprinkle with sea salt. Insert a digital thermometer from one end, horizontally, into the middle, and bake for 30 minutes. Turn around the pan in the oven and continue to cook until digital thermometer hits 110F and then remove. The beef will continue to climb in temperature to a medium rare. Immediately transfer to a wire rack to allow air to move under the wellington. Slice horizontally, in one inch slices, and serve.