Beef Wellington

Beef  + Pastry = Awesome... duh

Apparently Beef Wellington is supposed to be difficult to make. I found the base for this recipe on allrecipes.com a long time ago and have made the dish numerous times without any disasters.. which means that any rookie chef can pull this off. This recipe takes a bit of time than I would spend on a normal week-night dinner but it's super easy and the end result looks like something you've slaved over for hours!

Ingredients

1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup chopped parsley
4 (8 ounce) fillets beef tenderloin
1 (17.5 ounce) package frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 medium red onion, sliced into strips
1 egg + 1 tbs water, whisked

Directions

1. PARTIALLY thaw the puff pastry sheets. It still needs to be slightly frozen and stiff, when it thaws too much it's super difficult to deal with. For best results: move the pastry from the freezer to the fridge 1 hour before you want to start cooking. Right before you begin, remove the pastry from the refrigerate and take it out of the boxes and onto the counter to continue to thaw.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F

2.  In a large skillet over medium heat, combine the mushrooms, onion, wine, butter and parsley and saute until all the liquid is absorbed and the mixture resembles a paste. 

3. Cut the pastry squares in half diagonally (1 box of pastry should come with 2 squares, which makes 4 appropriately sized pastry triangles). Place steak (seasoned with salt & pepper if desired) in the center of pastry triangle, top with mushroom/onion paste, and wrap the pastry to cover the entire steak. Brush pastry with egg wash.

4. Bake steaks uncovered in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. (Note: They will be rare but will continue cooking while dish is sitting.)

We served this dish with some grilled asparagus and mashed cauliflower and it was big hit! I had some extra puff pastry left over this time because I needed to serve 5 people so I embellished the pastry with some hand cut leaves.

Hidden inside that fluffy pastry is a delicious, premium cut, perfectly cooked beef tenderloin... perfection!