Beef Wellington

Has anyone tried, or is there a point to trying this sous vide?

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I confess I have never made beef wellington... Seems like one of those things I should do one day. Anyway - I was listening to an old cooking issues podcast and as is also noted on the cooking issues website under the intro to low temp cooking post - Dave recommends cooking the beef sous vide "for insurance", as he puts it, then wrapping in puff pastry and baking in oven, only needing to concentrate on the pastry since the beef is already perfectly cooked. Just passing along the tip.

Man I love that podcast. That and Chefsteps can keep me entertained for hours - although they're only second to getting into the kitchen and getting my hands dirty.

trev_teich

Cool thanks

Lennard__34626

This was made in December 2009. Beef tenderloin sous vide then blowtorched, proceeded as per a normal beef Wellington recipe, but basically only baked enough to cook the puff pastry

jim_53915

@Lennard What temperature did you end up cooking your beef before wrapping in puff pastry?

I have been experimenting with creating a 4 minute mid rare beef Wellington, consistency has been our goal and so far its been hit or miss. So far results have been perfectly cooked meat but soggy falling apart crust and perfect crust but overcooked meat.

Anyone have some thoughts?

Brendan_Lee_56950

Maybe chilling the meat slightly before wrapping in pastry, it'll be a timing issue but that way they can reach an optimal temp simultaneously?

Chris_Young_80640

I can't tell, but do you have a duxelle in between the meat and pastry to absorb excess moisture?

jim_53915

@brendan they are being cooked from frozen @chris I haven't used duxelle would it affect timing or dough texture?

Chris_Young_80640

The classic recipe I got from Heston used a very duxelle mixture cooked until nearly dry (dehyrated would be even better) in between the dough and the meat. This helped a lot to keep the pastry crust from getting soggy.

jim_53915

So if I sauteed garlic, shallot, thyme, onion, and garlic briefly then dried @200-250F for an hour or so, applied evenly would help prevent dough separating from the fillet?

Would freezing affect the Wellington by adding moisture from defrosting as it bakes?

Lennard__34626

@jim I cooked to 55C. And I used a duxelle that was sautéed

trev_teich

@Chris Care to share the recipe?:)

Chris_Young_80640

Actually, it never got written down. I was going to cook it for Christmas dinner and he kind of told me what he would do. It's been, like, nine years now so I barely remember it. But I do remember that a very dry duxelle made the difference. I also remember using a ton of oloroso sherry in the duxelle reduction.

adey73

Am interested in this encroute thing...

the 'classic' technique that doesn't work is you wrap a pancake (that has only been cooked on
one side) round the duxelle, pate and protein that then aborbs the cooking juices.

even if this did work how would prepare a single portion for service?

And there is also salmon version, do you cook a whole encroute then just rewarm the indvidual slice,
or bake one parcel off per order?

Samuel_68313

I'm not sure beef Wellington works too well as a restaurant dish, certainly not when made to order, I guess it can work as part of a set menu, but I've never had a good one in a restaurant personally.

I got a bit obsessed a few years back with it and made quite a few, not made it in a long time though. I didn't have access to anything like a sous vide machine back then, I just seared it, rolled it in powdered wild mushrooms, then in duxelle, then in pastry. Came out great but still slightly soggy, I just saw that as an inevitability of the dish though.

I had plans to try and wrap the seared meat it in caul fat, I never got round to trying that though.

jim_53915

Made the Wellington today for a test and nailed it. This is for a passed appetizer: a piece of tenderloin .5 inches diameter by 6 inches long seasoned with salt & pepper, wrapped in plastic wrap as a cylinder and frozen. Cryofried until golden crust, then cooked sous vide with roasted garlic, thyme, rosemary for 30 minutes @130F beef should be reading 120F.

Made a duxelle with shallots, garlic, thyme, onion, mushrooms and sherry. Cooked dry, then laid on a sheet tray lined with towels and dried in the oven 30 minutes @ 200F.

Rolled out pie dough, spread dry duxelle out evenly, egg washed beef and rolled it up. Then egg washed the dough and froze. Baked @400F for 7 minutes, produced a perfect gold crust and medium rare beef.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@Jim write up a recipe and explain why you are only going to a core of 120F as well, did you calculate that based on the 400F or via tests on the .5 inch tube? I'm guessing there is a formula there that maybe chefsteps can help with? Like a maximum diameter at the temp before you burn the pastry and do nothing to the meat.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I've been pondering the perfect way of doing this ever since I saw Ramsey frothing at the jowls over people overcooking his Wellington on Hells Kitchen...

jim_53915

@Johan the beef temp of 120F out of the circulator is based on the small size of the beef and the 7 minutes in the oven @ 400F in order to heat and brown the pastry crust without over cooking the meat. The main idea is to have it cooked enough so all you are really concerned with is cooking the outside dough before its served. I'm sure that the sous vide cooking temperature would change based on the thickness of beef being cooked.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

@Jim - Exactamundo

But you found a delta, that means that we can work empirically towards that if we wanted to crowd-source

So, all in all awesome

Chris_Young_80640

@Jim — Would love to see a write up of the recipe (and a photo!).

com-chefsteps

Recently tried several versions of this (so we subbed pâté brisée for the puff). We wanted the piece to be one or two bites, which presented a problem cooking the crust in the oven - how to get the meat in and out of the oven fast enough to stay med-rare. We tried pre-searing and not-pre-searing, SV, then freezing/not-freezing the meat before wrapping in pastry and cooking in the oven. There are too many variables here for others to get much use from, but for us, pre-searing and freezing the meat provided the best result - and even that earned a "pretty good" rating at best. Fortunately, we had crème fraîche, pressure-caramelized onions, and mustard greens to, uh, cover it up with. Flavors were great, but I wished for a lot more, presentation-wise.

(Ignore what your brain tells you in this pic about size - those vegetables are baby.)

prochon123

I made Beef Wellington for my wife last valentines day. It was before I bought my sous vide. I followed Gordon Ramsay's recipe and watched his video on youtube. It turned out fantastic. I checking the recipe and I think one thing that ensured it did not get soggy is that when the mushroom mixture is applied to the tenderloin it is wrapped in thin shaved prosciutto which acts as a moisture barrier and gives you a nice crust on the pastry. This year I will sous vide the meat so it will be more rare and use the Pate Brisee recipe for the crust.

Yngve_Hilmo_12861

What about dusting the sous vide-cooked filet in a mix of trisol and flour before adding the dough? Wouldn't this prevent moisture from leaking from the meat into the pastry, like it does when used for deep frying?