Mini Beef Wellingtons

It all started last Wednesday when we were browsing through the recipe binders. We came across a recipe for Mini Beef Wellingtons from the December 2013 issue of Coastal Living, the article and included recipes, was pairing appetizers with champagne for New Year’s Eve. The itty bitty wellies seemed too small for dinner and when I searched for the recipe online, I found another recipe from Martha Stewart. Little did I know that I would be making a meal out of a $92 cut of beef! Don’t fret I now know a less expensive cut of meat to substitute for beef tenderloin when embarking on such a delectable treat. Oh wait, you also have to cook with cognac. I bought the least expensive I could find since it was just for a recipe; it was $19.99. 

Here is my geek-out moment! I was extremely excited to create a recipe that my idol Martha Stewart created. I had so much kitchen confidence! I also was able to cook with cognac! The only issue I had was that the meat cutter at the supermarket, to be helpful, cut the beef tenderloin into 13 pieces instead of leaving it whole. This made searing the tenderloin a bit tricky, rather than two pieces like in the recipe, we had 13 pieces. Our mini wellingtons came out more on the medium-well to well-done side, we think that might be the reason. 

I’ll get into the substitutes, for the 5 pound beef tenderloin you can try a 5 pound top eye of round, for the cognac you can try brandy. You will also need a duck mousse pâté I was able to find one at a local organic grocery store for $5.99. If you don’t like the taste of duck or the thought of eating duck, there are some versions of mousse pâté made out of mushrooms. Other ingredients that you will need for this meal, safflower oil, fresh thyme, puff pastry, butter, egg, olive oil, lemon, and butter lettuce. You will also need an assortment of mushrooms we used crimini, white, baby portobellos, oyster, and shiitake. Feel free to choose your favorite mushrooms, this is a side dish to accompany the Wellington, and in our opinion, any sautéed mushroom is delicious. 

The entire cooking time with prep was about two and a half hours. One hour is waiting for the wrapped wellies to cool in the refrigerator, and another forty minutes is cooling time for the beef tenderloin. All in all, we would give the mini beef wellingtons a huge thumbs up! The best part is that we have three more in the freezer that we can just pop in the oven for 35 minutes whenever we want a fancy meal. We have to say that Martha Stewart’s Mini Beef Wellingtons recipe was a My Foodie Duty Test Kitchen win, also we felt really fancy!

Until next time, happy eating! 

Martha Stewart’s Mini Beef Wellingtons Recipe

Mini Beef Wellingtons Recipe

• 5 lb Beef Tenderloin or 5 lb Top Eye of Round Roast (halved crosswise)
• Coarse salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• 2 packages (12 oz each) all-butter puff pastry (we only used 1 of the packages and all we could find was Pepperidge Farms…I was told puff pastry is more of a seasonal item)
• 8 ounces duck mousse pâté (we only bought 5 ounces and it worked, might have been out pre-cut tenderloin)
• 2 Large Eggs

COOKING THE WELLINGTONS

• Season beef with salt and pepper
• Heat 1 tablespoon safflower oil in a heavy skillet over high heat
• Add half of beef; sear each side, turning until browned all over (2 to 3 minutes side)
• Transfer to a cutting board; repeat with the second half (our pieces were all cut; our pictures show our meat resting on a sheet pan)
• Let cool, 40 minutes. Cut each half into 4 equal pieces (we didn’t have to cut)
• Heavily flour your workspace, then roll out 1 sheet of puff pastry; flour the top; use a rolling pin to get it a little larger than 16 by 12 inches (don’t laugh, we used measuring tape)
• Trim edges; cut into four 8-by-6-inch squares (we just cut into 4 equal pieces, there was flour everywhere)
• Place one piece of beef, cut-side down, on a pastry square; top with 2 tablespoons mousse, spreading evenly (we didn’t measure the mousse)
• Lightly beat 1 egg, then brush over edges of the pastry, fold up corners to enclose filling, and gently press to seal
• Repeat with the remaining ingredients
• Arrange Wellingtons, seam-side up, on parchment-lined baking sheet; wrap well in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Wrap well in plastic and then foil if freezing. (Freeze up to 2 weeks)
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees
• Lightly beat remaining egg, then brush over frozen/chilled Wellingtons
• Divide between 2 parchment-lined baking sheets
• Bake about 35 minutes for medium-rare if frozen and 25 minutes if chilled (while they are baking cook the sautéed mushrooms)
• Remove Wellingtons from the baking sheet and let rest 10 minutes before serving with mushrooms and butter lettuce (while the Wellingtons are resting prepare the salad)

For the mushrooms

• 3 lbs mixed wild mushrooms
• Fresh thyme
• 6 TBS butter
• 3 TBS olive oil
• 6 TBS cognac or brandy
• Kosher salt
• Fresh ground pepper

COOKING THE MUSHROOMS
You will cook these in two batches if your skillet isn’t big enough, use half of the butter, olive oil, and cognac on the first batch.

• In a skillet on medium heat add 3 TBS of butter and 1 ½ TBS of olive oil
• Add ½ of the mushrooms; stir them around to get them coated in the butter and olive oil
• Add 3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme, stir
• Add salt & pepper, stir
• When all the moisture is out of the mushrooms and they are nice and brown (about 10-15 minutes) add 3 TBS of cognac and stir; scrape the pan while you stir to deglaze the pan
• Let cook for a few more minutes (until the alcohol smell goes away) and remove mushrooms from pan
• Let cook for a few more minutes (until the alcohol smell goes away) and remove mushrooms from pan

I have a giant skillet and returned both batches to the pan at the end to reheat the mushrooms and added a little bit more cognac and a few more sprigs of thyme.

For the Salad

• Butter lettuce
• Juice from ½ a lemon
• Salt & pepper to taste

PREPPING THE SALAD

• Put the butter lettuce into a bowl
• Squeeze the lemon juice over the lettuce
• Add salt & pepper
• Toss salad; serve