17 replies to this topic

[Thrash]

Has anyone ever had it? Or, more so, ever actually made it?

[Invicta]

Had it? Yes, earlier this year at a wedding. Made it? No. But it was awesome, (if a bit messy as a wedding appetizer, crumbs and all that) it seems like it's definitely worth figuring out how to make.

[Thrash]

Yea, it looks real good, but I was wondering if I could substitute something else in place of the tenderloin (expensive).

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

You can replace the tenderloin with any cut of beef. If you tenderize it it will come out better.

[Thrash]

You can replace the tenderloin with any cut of beef. If you tenderize it it will come out better.

I was thinking more along the lines of a cube steak or shaved ribeye.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

That would probably be fine.

[Invicta]

I don't see why you couldn't put just about anything in there provided it's sufficiently fatty (some things, like pork and ostrich I would think would be too dry) and it'll hold together sufficiently. As Jorost said tenderness would be the issue. Personally I think something like a decent NY Strip would be better than a Tenderloin; it's still pretty tender but it's more marbled which I prefer. I think a cube steak would work though, you'd just have to tenderize the hell out of it, I prefer to stab it repeatedly with a meat fork and apply tenderizer; it gets mashed too much if you pound it with a meat mallet and I'm not sure how that would work for Beef Wellington. Just some random thoughts.

As far as cost goes the pate won't be cheap no matter how you go about it (and cheap pate is really, really bad), and then there's the traditional Duxelles (French mushroom and herb cream sauce) which isn't too bad but isn't cheap (or simple) and the puff pastry itself (which is crazy to make yourself, just buy it). All together it's a pretty damned expensive dish, but definitely worth it for a special occassion. Maybe I'll try it for Christmas if my family will go for it. Hmm... Btw, if memory serves the pate for Beef Wellington is traditionally foie gras with black truffel; however, as good as the black truffel is you can save money and get something like a relatively high-grade foie gras paste without the black truffel to save money since in beef wellington its used as a coating for the meat (to give it flavor and moisture). Ideally you should try the foie gras first, like I said, bad foie gras is aweful and all that.

[Shotgun Willy]

it certainly looks good, except for the mushrooms. bleh

[KingTopherXXIII]

Better make it right or Chef Ramsey will yell at you!

[Thrash]

I looked up what foie gras is and that's not in the recipe at all I was looking at. I would never want to eat that.

Here's the recipe I was looking at:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyle ... index.html

I'm looking forward to attempting to flambe.

[Invicta]

Actually that recipe looks excellent, and dropping the foie gras would definitely decrease the expense tremendously. As for the flavor of foie gras, it's actually excellent. I agree the idea of it is somewhat off-putting, but after being more or less forced to try it due to social circumstances I found I actually quite like it. There is the whole moral consideration of force-feeding corn to a goose until it's obese, then force-feeding it alcohol until it becomes tremendously drunk, then butchering it and turning its liver into pudding... I'm sure PETA doesn't approve, but I'm not really sure if that bothers me or not. It probably should, but I can't really decide.

My understanding of its role in traditional Beef Wellington is that it seals in the juices of the meat, keeping things moist and preventing the puff pastry from getting soggy. I'm guessing that's what the prosciutto and dijon do in Tyler's version.

I looks like a great recipe, as seems to be the case with most food network recipes I've tried. If you're going to try it let us know how it turns out!

[Shotgun Willy]

it's not so much the foie gras (though that kinda turns me off too), but the Duxelles. I dunno why, but I HATE, and I mean H-A-T-E mushrooms with a passion not unlike the fury of a thousand suns. I will eat broccoli and cauliflower (both of which I also strongly dislike, the latter moreso than the former) before mushrooms.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

I would imagine that foie gras is a more recent addition to beef Wellington, because the latter is an English dish and the former is French, and very often those cultures were at odds with one another. Hell, beef Wellington is named for the man who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo! But this is just a guess. I could look it up, I suppose, but I believe my theory has the benefit of "truthiness," so I'm sticking with it.

[Invicta]

30 seconds of arm-chair research indicates that they don't actually know WHERE the dish originated. The idea that it was named for the first duke of Wellington makes some sense, but there's no evidence for it. However, traditionally, foie gras aside, it's made with duxelles which is also French. The dish in general actually has some very traditional French ellements, so there's something odd going on there.

[Nemphesis]

I don't think I've ever had Beef Wellington. This saddens me greatly

Foie gras, on the other hand, is absolutely fantastic to eat.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

30 seconds of arm-chair research indicates that they don't actually know WHERE the dish originated. The idea that it was named for the first duke of Wellington makes some sense, but there's no evidence for it. However, traditionally, foie gras aside, it's made with duxelles which is also French. The dish in general actually has some very traditional French ellements, so there's something odd going on there.

That makes me think it was something French that the Iron Duke brought back from the war.

[Invicta]

I kinda' imagine that it's an English/French hybrid. Maybe something where he came back from the war and had his cooks make a dish based on his descriptions of something he liked in France, but it inevitably ended up being different and Anglicized. The French are so incredibly traditional about food I think if it was originally French we would still see it (or something very like it) in modern French cuisine. The dish also bears some resemblance to the traditional meat pie. It's got the puff pastry surrounding meat that is essentially being stewed in a combination of its own juices and duxelles (a mushroom/herb/cream sauce). In the end its obviously NOT a meat pie or a stew, but I can see an English chef familiar with those dishes turning a French peasant food based on available farm-products (beef, gavage fed goose liver, wild mushrooms and herbs, fresh cream, etc.) into something like that. Wild conjecture but it's how I picture it.

[Thrash]

The duxelles is the thing I'm looking most forward to.