December 29, 2020

Bijou Beef Wellingtons

Mini Beef Wellington, Simplified, but Still Artful

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(Jump to the recipe file here.)

I had planned on making these mini, simplified, Beef Wellingtons for our Christmas dinner this year, but I kind of moved slowly all that day and didn’t start making the red wine sauce until about 5pm, and I just didn’t want to rush it (or have to suddenly start moving quickly), (so I switched gears and we ended up having eggs Benedict for Christmas dinner, not a bad plan B, if I do say so myself.)

So I made these petite, bijou beef wellingtons the day after Christmas, and it was amazing, perfect even, and more importantly, proof positive that you don’t need a special occasion to make this for dinner. You can make this any ol’ day of the week; turn Tuesday into a special occasion!

Beef Wellington, if you’re wondering, is a fillet steak coated in a mushroom-onion paste, then a layer of pâté, and sometimes a layer of thin ham such as prosciutto (to keep the pastry crispier), then wrapped in puff pastry and baked.

My first-ever experience with Beef Wellington was not that full version, but still memorably delicious. My Mom and sister once made little, teensy, bite-sized, simplified Beef Wellingtons by taking a one-inch cube of steak, placing one slice of mushroom that had been sauteed in butter, and wrapping each mushroom-topped cube in about a two-inch square of puff pastry, and baking those for 20 minutes. I may have eaten a dozen or more of those things, they were so good.

This version that I am sharing here is somewhere in between the true Beef Wellington and that appetizer version. The mushroom paste, called duxelles, (or as we call it in my house, Becky’s-base-for-just-about-everything), I left in, because… I feel like I put mushrooms, onions and garlic in everything I make. The pâté coating, I did leave out this time, mostly for time’s sake. I made them individually sized, out of 8 oz. fillets. I also made a really delicious red-wine sauce just for serving alongside.

Here it is:

Bijou Beef Wellingtons

You’ll Need:

For the Red-Wine Sauce:

1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallot onion, minced
2 Tbs butter, divided (used 1 Tbs at a time)
1-2 Tbs tomato paste
¼ tsp oregano
1 cup dry red wine
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper

For the Duxelles (Mushroom Paste)

(This makes about 6 Tbs.):

1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
2-3 oz. mushrooms, minced
1 Tbs butter
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
2-3 Tbs dry sherry

For the Bijou Beef Wellingtons:

2 Tbs mushroom duxelles per portion
1 6 to 8 oz. fillet mignon per person
Salt and pepper to taste
3-4 Tbs olive oil
1 6-7 inch square of puff pastry per portion
1 egg + 1 tsp water (for an egg wash)

Begin by making the red wine sauce, and this can be done in advance. Store in the refrigerator for up to a couple weeks.

(And if you have any left over, you can use as a sauce on another steak or on grilled chicken breasts, or you could freeze it for the next time you make these Beef Wellingtons. I copy my sister-in-law who used to make big-batch smoothies and freeze them in ice cube trays for quicker morning prep. I freeze most leftover sauces in ice cube trays, once frozen, wrap the frozen cubes in plastic wrap, and place those in Ziplocs. Each cube is about 1 Tbs.)

Pictured above is my process of saving some egg yolks I wanted to save, but shows the concept of how I save sauces.

To make the red wine sauce:

Mince your shallot and garlic.

Over medium heat, melt 1 Tbs butter in a heavy-bottom sauce pan. (Leave the other Tbs of butter in your refrigerator to stay cold.) Add your shallot and sauté for about 1 minute. Then and your garlic and sauté for another minute. Then add your 1 to 2 Tbs tomato paste and ¼ tsp oregano and stir to combine and to scrape anything from the bottom of the pan back into the sauce. Sauté for another minute or two.

Then add your 1 cup dry red wine, stir to mix everything together, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Scrape the bottom of the pan to mix everything in. Allow to simmer for about 10 minutes to reduce, stirring occasionally to clean the bottom of the pan.

Once reduced slightly, remove from the heat and strain out the solid pieces of onion and garlic.

Return the strained sauce to the pan and over low heat, melt the remaining 1 Tbs cold butter into the sauce.

Season with salt and pepper to taste, about 1/8 tsp of each.

Set aside or store for future use.

Next, prepare the beef fillets:

Any meat (which is most meat these days) that I get wrapped in plastic, I like to give a quick rinse under cold water, then pat dry with a paper towel.

Then season each fillet with a small amount of salt and pepper on both sides.

Over medium-high heat, heat 3-4 Tbs olive oil in a heavy-bottom pan and once hot and slightly bubbling, sear each of your fillets for about 1 minute each side. (And do be careful, because this can get a little splattery.)

Once seared on all sides, place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

And don’t clean your pan! Use the same pan, to make your mushroom duxelles.

Next make the mushroom duxelles:

Mince your shallot and garlic and mushrooms.

In the same pan that you used to sear your fillets, melt 1 Tbs butter then sauté your shallot and garlic for a minute or two. Scrape the bottom of the pan to get all that goodness into your duxelles.

Then add your minced mushrooms and sauté another few minutes, until the mushrooms darken in color, give off juices, and then some of those juices begin to cook out.

Add your salt and pepper, about ¼ teaspoon of each.

Take the pan off the heat and pour in your 2 to 3 Tbs dry sherry and stir to combine. Return the pan to the heat and cook for a few more minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Transfer to a bowl or plate and set aside briefly.

Prepare your puff pastry & assemble the Wellingtons:

Preheat your oven to 425˚F.

Go ahead and pull your fillets out of the refrigerator.

Prepare an egg wash by whisking 1 egg with 1 scant tsp of water.

Then prepare your puff pastry. I used frozen puff pastry, and I didn’t actually pull it out of the freezer in enough time to let it thaw at room temperature, so I followed the package instructions for thawing in the microwave. (It’s a joke in our house that the only thing I use the microwave for is to soften butter at the last minute… but see, I have two uses, I also use the microwave to soften the butter in puff pastry at the last minute.)

Roll the puff pastry sheet just slightly to flatten it out and make it just a smidge thinner. Cut a 6 to 7 inch square of puff pastry for each fillet.

With a paper towel, Pat dry the bottom of each fillet that has been sitting on the plate before placing it on the pastry.

Spoon 2 Tbs of the mushroom duxelles onto the top of each filet. Pick up one filet and invert it into the middle of one of your puff pastry squares.

Brush the outside border with egg wash.

Wrap the corners of your pastry over the filet, making an envelope. At this point, you can either trim the corners and squeeze the pastry seams together, which will give you a thinner layer of pastry (and a better chance of a crispy bottom) or you can tuck the extra in and under, which is what I did this time around. Use egg wash as needed to seal any seams, whichever way you go.

Repeat with each filet, then place each Wellington on a parchment-lined or non-stick baking sheet.

You can cut some pretty shapes out of the edge strips of the puff pastry that you cut away when making your 6-7 inch squares. (Any strips of puff pastry you don’t use, can be re-wrapped in their packaging and placed back in the freezer. I stick the whole paper package in a gallon-size Ziploc, put that back in the box and that back in the freezer. Waste not, want not, especially when it comes to pastry.)

Brush the tops of your Wellingtons with a light brushing of egg wash and arrange some pretty cut-outs, and brush those too.

Bake in your 425˚F oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry is crispy and browned.

In the meantime, re-heat your red wine sauce in a small saucepan on medium-low.

Once the Wellingtons are baked, remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

I served this with a simple salad of red leaf lettuce (that my ducks were good enough to share with us – my ducks eat diced lettuce floated on their water dish twice a day), topped with some nice blueberry-walnut goat cheese I picked up at my local Kroger, some sliced strawberries and these really yummy candies pecans I got from my parents for Christmas.