One of the oldest, most revered, delicious and famous meat dishes is Wellington, beef baked in pastry. Every day, even cooking enthusiasts will not be able to cook it. Firstly, expensive. Secondly, troublesome. Thirdly, it is time consuming. But on a big holiday, this wonderful meat roll should certainly appear on the table !
Name origin versions
Where did Wellington beef get its name from (see photo of the dish in the review), there is no reliable information. There are three ideas, each of which has its own supporters.
- Roulade borrowed the name from the first English duke of the corresponding county. It seems to be his favorite dish was baked beef, accompanied by mushrooms and truffles.
- Wellington is beef, so named by the British patriot cook in honor of the winner at Waterloo, Duke of Wellington.
- The name comes from the name of the New Zealand capital.
The latest version is the most doubtful, since the city became the capital only in 1865, and the dish has a much more ancient history.
Meat selection
The key to success of Wellington roll is beef of the highest class. You need to take a tenderloin; Moreover, you should find a piece in which there are streaks of fat.
The next moment is the freshness of the meat. You won’t get a normal Wellington if the beef has already been frozen. Fresh meat, of course, is not available in the city, but the chunk should only be cooled. Otherwise, it will be possible, but you should not expect a culinary masterpiece.
There are several ways to make Wellington beef. The old recipe, alas, has not been fully preserved to our times. Each cook tries to the best of his skills, understanding the ultimate goal and access to various ingredients. At the moment, the most popular is the option according to which the dish is prepared by Gordon Ramsay - a British chef (who, by the way, is a Scots by origin), who managed to adapt the dish to the present without losing its originality.
Ramsay Rules
The great culinary specialist has developed the basic principles that need to be holyly followed if you want the cooking experiments to be successful. They need to be observed if you start the Wellington beef from Gordon. For those who are not familiar with the rules, we summarize them below.
- Harmony in balance. It must be respected in everything from the culinary idea to the menu.
- Seasonings. Only one central product is highlighted in the dish, the rest relate to seasonings and should only shade and complement it. For example, when "Wellington" is being prepared, beef is the main thing, and mushrooms, bacon and so on are just related products.
- Simplicity. The idea should be clear and concise.
- Color. Yes, the shades of the components should be combined, and in a natural way.
- Innings. Appetizing design of the dish is half the success.
- Context. It implies understanding and taking into account the tastes of the one who will eat the dish.
- Conformity of preparation and type of product. That is, the fish is not fried until the chips are dry.
- Sauce - it is the clothes for the body of the dish.
- Content: only perfect products, bad ones will kill even the best idea.
- Ability to stop on time (an item especially important for reckless beginners).
Keeping in mind each of the rules, we’ll take up the “Wellington Beef by Gordon Ramsay” dish.
What is needed
In calculating the number of ingredients, we will proceed from the mass of beef tenderloin in three quarters of a kilo. In this case, the accompanying components will be required in such quantities:
- Fresh, medium-sized champignons - 400 grams. It is possible to increase or decrease the amount in accordance with your ideas about harmony - however, this applies to any component in any dish.
- Ham in the amount of seven slices. Need Parma, but if there is no way to buy it, pick a similar one in quality.
- Puff pastry, half a kilogram packaging. Yeast or not, does not play a role.
- Egg yolks for lubrication, two pieces.
- Of spices and additional ingredients: English mustard, vegetable (or rather, olive, and good) oil (two tablespoons each), sea salt and only ground pepper - to your personal taste.
Flour will still be needed, but only for dusting, and any housewife will find such an amount.
Gordon Ramsay's Beef Wellington: Preparatory Work
The first thing to do is mushrooms. It is undesirable to wash them; it is recommended to clean them with a cloth, brush or brush. In an extreme case, after washing, they should be dried to the maximum after draining the water. Champignons are passed through a food processor or a meat grinder; mushrooms are placed in a very hot pan until the moisture evaporates (this moment will take about ten minutes, if constantly stirring).
Now the main ingredient of Wellington roll is: the beef is rubbed with salt mixed with pepper and is browned on all sides - thirty seconds each barrel. After cooling, the meat is coated with mustard.
Roll assembly
So, the most important thing remains: the Wellington beef must be put together. A recipe from Ramsey advises you to do it like this:
- A cling film is spread on the table, it will greatly facilitate all processes.
- A layer of ham slices is laid out. They must overlap each other.
- The ham layer is covered with a uniform layer of mushrooms.
- Fried beef tenderloin is laid out in the middle and wrapped in a prepared “cover”. It must be ensured that the polyethylene is not wrapped inward. The bundle is hiding for a third of an hour in the cool.
- While the main part of the roll is soaked, the dough rolls on the table. The maximum thickness is three millimeters; however, roll out thinner than two.
- Meat is laid out in the center of the bed. The free space is smeared with slightly beaten yolk.
- The edges of the dough are wrapped around beef. The joints, so as not to diverge, are carefully shut up, excess dough is cut off, the roll is placed on the oven sheet and greased on top with yolk, after which it is put on the bottom of the refrigerator for a quarter of an hour.
All that remains is to bake your Wellington. Beef is put in an oven heated to 200 degrees Celsius. Before this, on the "packaging" you need to make several oblique incisions. After about twenty minutes, the temperature drops to 180 degrees, and baking continues for another quarter of an hour.
Original: Wellington in the loaf
The filling is being prepared, as for Wellington according to Ramsey's recipe. Only a piece of beef should be smaller by half a kilogram (the number of other components is adjusted accordingly). The difference is in the simplified shell. Fresh loaf is cut along. The crumb is removed so that a minimum remains along the crust. Bacon strips are laid from the inside, mushroom frying on them. Then a beef tenderloin is placed on one half and closed with a “lid”. The design is wrapped in foil and hidden in the oven. Bake this version of Wellington will be from 20 to 25 minutes. The beef is amazing. True, the loaf is not a very good substitute for the puff pastry crust.