Why it is called Beef Wellington?

Beef Wellington is a classic dish. It involves coating a beef fillet with pate or mushroom paste, wrapping it in pastry and then baking it in oven. The exterior is light, crisp, buttery, shiny golden brown, twinkling with sea salt.  When you slice through it you experience the richness and goodness of juicy tenderloin along with other buttery flavourings. As far as the story of the origin of Beef Wellington goes — it was a homage to the British Duke of Wellington by chefs to mark his victory over Napoleon Bonaparte.  Those were the days when chefs would often create dishes to pay tribute to the war heroes.

Beef Wellington

Ingredients

Tenderloin fillet 1kg

English mustard 2tbsp

Button mushrooms 400g

Sea salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

Olive oil 4 tbsp

Butter 4 tbsp

Puff pastry 500g

Flour to dust

Egg yolk 1 no

Method

Coarsely chop mushroom in a food processor with some seasoning and keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan and cook the mushrooms over high heat to cook out the moisture from mushrooms.

Cook for 10 minutes and remove from flame and spread out on a plate to cool.

Season the beef fillet and sear in a heavy bottom pan with olive oil.

Turn to sear evenly from all the sides, approximately 30-45 seconds on each side. On a cling film spread out the mushroom mixture and roll the beef fillet over it.

Keeping a tight hold of the cling film from the edge, neatly roll over to make a roll, refrigerate for 30 minutes so that the beef is shaped.

Roll out the puff pastry on a floured surface into rectangle shape to a thickness of 2-3mm.

Remove cling wrap from beef and then lay the beef over it and wrap the pastry around beef, cutting off any excess.

Place on greased baking tray and brush the pastry with egg and refrigerate for 1 hour to allow the pastry to set into its shape.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degree C for 20 minutes and then at 180 degree C for 15 minutes.

Once the pastry is golden brown from outside, remove and allow to stand for 10 minutes.

Slice as required and serve hot with choice of greens and potato on the side.

Blueberry

Blueberry hails from the popular berry family and is widely used for its sweet and sour taste and unique dark blue colour. Native to North America, they are widely used in the various cuisines of the world. Almost half of the total blueberries of the world come from America. In terms of their popularity and consumption they are second after strawberries. They are not only good to savour in the dishes but are a good source of antioxidants as well. Blueberries are sold fresh or processed as individually quick frozen (IQF) fruit, purée, juice, or dried or infused berries, which in turn may be used in a variety of consumer goods, such as jellies, jams, blueberry pies, muffins, snack foods and cereals.

Choose blueberries that are firm and have a lively, uniform hue coloured with a whitish bloom. Shake the container, noticing whether the berries have the tendency to move freely, if they do not, this may indicate that they are soft and damaged or moldy. Avoid berries that appear dull in colour or are soft and watery in texture. They should be free from moisture since the presence of water will cause the berries to decay. An interesting fact is that blue is not a naturally occurring colour in foods, thus blueberries are always a good option to colour the food blue.

Blueberry custard cake

Ingredients

Butter unsalted 500g

Sugar 450g

Flour 500g

Custard powder 50g

Blueberry filling 100g

Eggs 10no

Baking powder 1tsp

Method

Pre heat oven to 180 degree C.

Sift flour and baking powder and keep aside.

Cream butter and sugar till smooth.

Slowly add eggs and continue to whisk till light and fluffy.

Add flour gradually and mix well.

Grease a cake mould with butter and baking paper.

Pour the mixture and evenly spread it.

Drizzle few spoons of blueberry filling on top and swirl using the spoon handle to create a marble effect.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Allow to cool and slice the cake and drizzle some sugar syrup to make the cake moist.

Garnish with remaining blueberry filling and chocolate shavings.

*Tarun Kapoor is executive chef at Doha’s Horizon Manor Hotel.  Send your feedback to: exe.chef@horizonmanor.com