made it approachable. He first cooks the meat sous vide then freezes the assembled package before baking; this allows the pastry to puff without overcooking the meat or making the pastry soggy from beef juices.
also has a good technique, and he includes foie gras :-) but we followed Young's procedure. Other YouTube videos are good for demonstrating the assembly technique.
The hunt for ingredients has been fun. We only found two places that had butter-based pastry "
hojaldre" in rectangular sheets (in the US,
Dufour is good but pricey). The beef tenderloin is called "
solomilla de ternera" here, we got it from a butcher at the Mercat de Sant Antoni. We used "
papada Iberico curado" (thinly sliced guanciale) to wrap the beef and duxelles as a waterproofing layer instead of Chris Young's similar lardo.
Irene has a
pastry lattice cutter (of course she does) which makes for a beautiful top layer. For practice, we first made a Pork Tenderloin Wellington; this demystified the process and taught us how to measure the coatings to fit. The only fidgety part is the assembly, so take your time; this isn't something you can do in one day, especially since you need to freeze it hard -- take your time and relax.
Serves 2, plan on taking a couple days to make.
350 g Solomilla (beef tenderloin, from 500 g untrimmed)
3.5 g Salt
250 g Mushrooms, Cremini or other flavorful variety
75 g Shallots
sprig Tarragon, chopped fine
Mustard
Black Pepper
1 package Papada Iberico Curado (thinly sliced, arranged in a sheet)
260 g Hojaldre Mantequilla (1 package puff pastry, in a sheet)
Egg, beaten
Generously Salt the Solomilla, about 1% by weight.
Wrap it in plastic film and roll tightly to give it a good cylindrical shape.
Seal in a sous vide bag and cook at 55C/130F for 2.5-3 hours.
Chill.
Chop the Mushrooms and Shallots very fine, a food processor makes this easy.
Sauté in a bit of Oil with some Salt to cook down until very dry: you don't want liquid seeping out and ruining your pastry.
Add the chopped Tarragon.
Chill.
Unwrap and sear the Beef in plenty of fat to brown without overcooking.
Paint with Mustard.
Wrap and chill again.
The assembly is the tricky part, just take your time.
Lay out a sheet of cling film.
Measure the diameter of your Beef -- we wrapped with a string and cut; this gives you an idea of how much Papada/guanciale, duxelles, and pastry you'll need. Adding the duxelles and fat will increase this so add a bit more length to your string.
You may get lucky and find the sheet of Papada or other cured meat is about big enough to cover a rectangle the same width and a bit longer than your measured diameter -- we had to add a couple extra slices. If not, or you have individual slices of guanciale, serrano ham, or whatnot, just layer them with a slight overlap until you have a rectangle sufficient to cover the Beef.
Spread on the Duxelles to cover the cured meat slices, but leave a couple centimeters (an inch) uncovered: the Duxelles will spread as you roll.
Sprinkle generously with Black Pepper.
Lay the Beef on top and use the cling film to wrap it with the Fat-encased Duxelles;
you should have enough uncovered cured meat that they'll overlap slightly at the seam.
You might wanna put this in the fridge while you unwrap the Pastry.
Lay out another sheet of cling film or parchment paper.
Unwrap the Hojaldre Pastry onto the Film, smoothing out any egregious seams with a rolling pin.
Cut it a bit longer then your diameter-string to account for the thickness of the Duxelles; cut it wide enough to wrap the sides of the Beef roll. Keep the trimmed bits to decorate the finished roll.
Paint the Pastry rectangle with the beaten Egg.
Unwrap the Beef and lay on the Pastry.
Use the film/paper to carefully wrap the Beef, and seal the Pastry seam.
Place seam-side down on parchment paper or aluminum foil that you'll bake on.
Paint the Pastry outside with the beaten Egg.
If you're fancy, use your pastry lattice cutter to slice the left over Pastry; you can just cut strips, too.
Gently lay the lattice or strips of Pastry over the first layer.
Wash again with beaten Egg.
Wrap gently in the Film or Parchment.
Insert a leave-in probe thermometer, if you've got one.
Freeze the assembled Beef Wellington overnight or longer: you can hold it like this indefinitely if you wrap it well, and cook whenever it's convenient!
Preheat the oven to 230C/450F.
Remove Beef Wellington from the freezer and apply an egg wash.
Bake the Beef Wellington until the Pastry is puffed and deep golden brown, rotating once -- about 30-40 minutes; the center will still too cold to eat; ours was still frozen, holding onto the probe thermometer which read "LO", below freezing!
Lower the oven temperature to 65C/150F; open the door to drop the temperature.
If you didn't insert a thermometer before, do it now if you can.
Continue baking low until the internal temperature comes up to about 40C/105F, about 40 minutes;
we had to let it bake about 30 minutes longer but saw it rise fairly quickly once it started.
Turn off the oven and open the door.
Let the Beef Wellington rest, the internal temperature should rise to about 55F/130F serving temperature.
Slice carefully: you might want to start with a serrated bread knife to score the crust, then switch to a slicing knife for the Beef.
Plate attractively and serve.
We're accompanying it with asparagus and roasted potatoes, and a deep Spanish red.
It turned out well, despite the need for longer baking time. We think the duxelles was too thick (in addition to the quantities above, we used some left over from our pork wellington) and may have insulated too much. Next time use less.
Irene was OK with Jamon Serrano we used on the Pork Wellington but didn't like the flavor and texture of the papada/guanciale because it didn't melt. Lardo probably won't melt and certainly won't crisp, so try inexpensive prosciutto or mortadella (which would cut more easily).
The ends had bunched up pastry which was a bit too much -- these "caps" fell off when cutting the meat. Next time trim when folding like a package.
