I love Beef Wellington, but it does take some work ( and some cash ) to prepare. After watching Gordon Ramsay’s how-to, I felt confident in making this dish for company. Here’s how I did it.

Whole Foods is where I got my tenderloin. Beautiful meat, but it comes at a price. This is a once-a-year dish, if that, for me.

I had their butcher trim the silver skin. Ordinarily I do my own work, but I wanted to try something different. He did a good job, not much touch up needed on this filet.

You can’t skip the browning steps – here I’m browning the filet in a pan – all of the browning steps are crucial to developing a rich flavor – tenderloin on its own is not the most flavorful cut, and wrapping it in pastry would normally prevent any Maillard reactions from happening with the meat. So what do we do? Brown the filet ( sear it really ) to start.

Brush on a coat of hot mustard ( I used Colman’s ) just after the filet comes out of the pan.

Chestnuts, crimini mushrooms and dried mushrooms will make up the surrounding filling for the Wellington.

I used a food processor to make a coarse paste of the dried mushrooms, chestnuts and raw mushrooms.

Brown the chopped mushroom and chestnut mixture to get rid of moisture and develop flavor.

I think this took me 15 minutes, but I probably had the heat low so I didn’t accidentally burn the mushrooms.

Two packages of prosciutto are the base, then the mushroom and chestnut mixture is spread on top. The plastic wrap is used to wrap this all around the filet, which is then placed in the refrigerator to set. You can leave it there overnight, and actually keeping the meat colder will help with getting a rare Wellington, which is optimal for this cut. Well done filet is a tragedy.

The filet ready to be wrapped.

Getting the work surface ready for the puff pastry. The wrapped filet is setting up in the refrigerator. I used two sheets ( one package ) of puff pastry from Trader Joe’s freezer section. Defrost the puff pastry in the refrigerator a day ahead of time, then unfold it and roll it out so it can be wrapped completely around the Wellington. Flour helps keep it from sticking to the work surface.

The filet gets wrapped in the puff pastry – again we use plastic wrap to keep everything together. Getting a nice uniformly wrapped filet will help everything cook evenly.

Wrapped filet, ready to go back into the refrigerator to set up once again. This could also be left overnight.

Out of the refrigerator, the wrapped filet is painted with an egg yolk wash, the pastry is scored in a pattern with the back of a knife, and finally sea salt is sprinkled overtop it all. Ready to go into the oven.

The Beef Wellington, ready to serve. I made polenta and steamed broccoli to go with the dish – it is pretty rich all by itself. Enjoy!