Individual Beef Wellingtons

Tonight is my sweetie’s last night in KL before HIS official move to Cairo.  I’ll stay on a little longer to organize the packing up and prepare for Christmas here with elder and younger daughters.  Also, he sold his own car today, which he loved, so tonight called for a special compensatory meal.  We were given some filet mignon a few weeks back, which was just hanging out in the already too-full freezer so Beef Wellington came to mind.

Ingredients
25g (or about three tablespoons once they are minced) shallots

35g or 2 1/2 tablespoons butter

125g or 4.5 oz button mushrooms

2 sheets butter puff pastry

2 filet mignon steaks (150-160g or 5.3-5.6 oz each)

1/2 cup or 120ml dry white wine

1/2 cup or 120ml cream

1/2 chicken stock cube

90g or 3.2 oz fine pork or duck liver pâté or mousse

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 egg for the egg wash

Method

Finely chop the shallots and mushrooms.  Sauté gently with the butter until the mushrooms are cooked down and then the liquid is almost all gone.

Add the 1/2 cup white wine and simmer again.

Meanwhile, dry off the steaks and sear them for one minute on each side in a very hot pan.  Put them back in the refrigerator to chill.

Remove your puff pastry sheets from the freezer and thaw in the refrigerator.

Once almost all the liquid is gone again in the mushroom pan, add the 1/2 cup of thick cream, the 1/2 chicken stock cube, a few good grinds of fresh black pepper, and simmer.  

When it is very dry once more, remove from the heat and chill in the refrigerator.

Cut your pâté into two equal pieces. Keep chilled until ready to assemble the Wellingtons. Or the Beefs. I don't know how to shorten the name. Let's go with Wellingtons. 

To assemble the Wellingtons:  Put a piece of cling wrap straight on your counter top.  Put the thawed puff pasty on top of this.  Pull off the plastic that separates the puff pastry squares.

In a small bowl, beat your egg and add a little bit of water to make an egg wash.  Brush the egg wash all over the pastry square. 

Add half of the mushroom mixture (formally known as duxelles – why Beef Wellington, the quintessential English dish should have a French sub-ingredient, who knows? I object so I will continue to call it the mushroom mixture.  Just didn’t want my readers to remain in the dark.) in the middle of the pastry. 

Pop the steak on top and give it a gentle push down into the mushroom mixture.  Give it a good sprinkle of salt and pepper. 

Top the steak with the pâté.

Start folding in the pastry, corner by corner, getting it as tight as you can, with as little air as you can manage between the pastry and the meat.

Transfer them, using your cling film, to a baking pan.  Brush the little Wellingtons with your egg wash.

These can be kept in the refrigerator for an hour or two, until you are ready to bake them.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 425°F or 220°C.  Put your baking tray into the oven and set the timer for 20 minutes. 

After 20 minutes, test the steaks inside with an instant read thermometer.  Rare should read around 130° or 54°C, medium rare up to 140° or 60°C, medium up to 150° or 65°C.  If you cook tenderloin more than that, I don’t want to know about it. :)

Serve with red wine sauce (As you will notice, I used just the red wine sauce recipe here.) and the roasted vegetable of your choice. 

Enjoy! 

White Chocolate Cranberry Blondies

These White Chocolate Cranberry Blondies are lovely, chewy and rich baked with ground almonds and white chocolate, and then studded with tart dried cranberries.

When I lived in Kuala Lumpur many years ago, my friends and I played Pokeno once a month, taking turns hosting the evening. The host was in charge of the main course, and everyone else brought a side dish or salad or dessert. This is the note I wrote not long after one month that I hosted.


A open letter to my Pokeno ladies:

Dear Friends,
One of you brought a lovely salad to my house which contained dried cranberries. It was delicious! Along with the memories, you also left behind the unused portion of your bag of cranberries. It has been sitting on my countertop, mocking me daily, ever since. Please identify yourself immediately and you will get it returned in the form of these blondies. Just hot out of the oven.

Fondly,
Stacy

Ingredients
1 3/4 cup or 395g sugar
4 eggs
145g or 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons melted butter (This will be just shy of 3/4 cup, if you find that an easier measurement.)
30g or 1/3 cup ground almonds
2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups or 190g flour
65g or 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup good quality white chocolate chips

Method
Combine sugar and eggs, mixing well. They should get pale yellow and a little fluffy.

Add in the ground almonds and then the melted, room temperature butter.

Mix in remaining ingredients, minus 1/4 cup of the chocolate chips. 

Bake at 350°F or 180°C for 30-40 minutes in greased 9in x 9in pan (or until toothpick comes out clean.) 

Watch for early browning, cover lightly with foil or turn temperature down if necessary. Do not overbake!  These will be moist and delicious if they are removed from the oven slightly underdone.

Melt the reserved chocolate chips in the microwave (you may have to add a little butter if they are too dry) and spread on top of the blondies.  Cut into squares and serve.

Enjoy! 

Quick Pasta Dinner

So we walked in the door after the flight from Hong Kong.  At 8:05 p.m.  By 8:25, I had dinner on the table. Seriously.  

If you don’t have mushrooms or grape tomatoes, use whatever you have in the vegetable drawer.  Zucchini would work, or finely sliced cauliflower or broccoli, or asparagus cut into pieces, with whole fresh tomatoes or even a can of crushed tomatoes.  If you don’t have haloumi, add feta or some other salty cheese in at the end.  This is not even a recipe as much as a suggestion of how to add flavor to pasta.

Ingredients

250g or 8 oz of dried pasta

3 medium portabella mushrooms

2 large handfuls of grape tomatoes

3 cloves of garlic

90g or 3 1/4 oz haloumi cheese

200g or 7 oz baby spinach

Extra virgin olive oil

Parmesan cheese

Sea salt

Chili flakes or crushed red chili

Method

Put a large pot of water on to boil.  Add some salt.

Meanwhile, slice the mushrooms, the garlic and halve the tomatoes.

Slice the haloumi and fry it till brown on both sides, in a non-stick skillet with a drizzle of olive oil.  

When your water is boiling, add the dried pasta.  Drizzle in a little olive oil and give it a good stir so it doesn't all stick together. 

Push the haloumi to the sides of the pan and add the mushrooms and garlic to the skillet.

Fry gently until they soften.  Add the tomato halves and cook briefly.

Use your spatula to cut the haloumi into one-inch pieces.

Check on your pasta.  When it is within a minute of so of being cooked, add the spinach to the pasta pot.  

Stir well and then pour the pasta and spinach into a colander to drain.

Add the spinach and pasta to the skillet.  

Stir well and top with freshly grated Parmesan and some chili flakes.  

Serve with extra Parmesan and a good drizzle of the olive oil.

The weekend in Hong Kong was wonderful but it’s good to be home and cooking again.