Foolproof Beef Wellington and Dauphinois Potatoes Recipes!

Welcome back to my recipe blog Dinner Devourers!

Well., after last weeks excitement with the Cherry Reds pop up it's back to the kitchen at Chez Barnos this week for some good old fashioned British posh-pie and a total classic French potato accompaniment.

Just a quick heads up to let you know what happened at the Street food awards. I went over to Digbeth Dining Club and was literally speechless as to how busy it was, I've not seen crowds like that since the last time I went to Notting Hill Carnival, it was full to the brim of so many different types of traders and thousands of hungry punters happily queueing up for the delights on offer. Unfortunately when I got there ( after me and my date missed the exit on the motorway and had to do a massive detour, oops!) Andy's stall had already sold out! we stayed for a while and had some delicious roast potatoes from "Fat Duck Spuds" followed by a fresh handmade waffle each. (mine was topped with whipped cream, brownie pieces and cherry coulis and was fantastic!) from the Bournville Waffle Company.
We stayed around for a while talking to Andy and Donna but had to go before the winners were announced, but Andy Text me later to say that Low n' Slow had come a very respectable third behind The Original Patty Men. in second place and the Thai street food maestros Buddha Belly taking first, So a great night for Andy and the other winners.

This weeks recipes then are two of my favourite dinner party dishes, Beef Wellington, made with fillet steak, mushroom duxelle and puff pastry, and a classic French potato Dauphinois, thin slivers of potato baked with a rich cream, garlic and thyme sauce.

As usual, neither of them is difficult to do, they just take a little patience and time to make. One thing I would stress is to use the best quality ingredients you can. In the past I've ordered a beef wellington in restaurants only to be served what is basically a braised piece of beef wrapped in pastry, that is not a beef wellington! only fillet steak will do!
I've got a bit of a confession to make about the recipe I've done for the wellington here. Usually I get my fillet from a proper butchers but due to me not getting up till late on Saturday my butchers were closed so I had to use one of these "meat markets" you see around towns.
I've got nothing against these places for a supply of cheap-ish meat but I do like my fillet to be well aged and have a dry consistency. The pieces I bought for this blog were bright red with blood and had been hung for only about 2 weeks so weren't what I'd really like to use, but, with a little chef's ingenuity I managed to get them more like what I'm used to by leaving them in the fridge overnight, uncovered, and sitting on  top of a clean folded tea towel to draw some of the blood out of them. I did lose about 25g in weight from each piece but I know from experience that if you use a piece of fillet that is full of blood then the pastry on your wellington will be soggy and it ruins the whole thing. So if you do use fillet from one of these "meat markets", or a supermarket for that matter, then please do the same and your wellington will turn out as good as mine! or, alternatively, get yourself up in time to go to a proper butchers!!

Okay then, lets do this!
 We'll start with the Dauphinois recipe, as that takes longer to bake and you can be getting on with the Wellingtons whilst it's cooking.

Dauphinois Recipe (to make about 6 good portions.)

 

Equipment:

Mandolin. ( not the musical instrument but a gadget for thinly slicing veg! see picture.)
If you haven't got one of these then you can slice the potatoes by hand but you need them to be about the thickness of a pound coin at the most. If you can get hold of a mandolin then the job is much quicker.

Medium saucepan.

Buttered ceramic gratin dish. (roasting dish) about 4"x6"x3" deep.

Tin foil.

Large colander.

Clean tea towel.

Ingredients:

 

1 kg of Desiree potatoes.( if you can't get Desiree then you can use any red-skinned, yellow fleshed, semi-waxy potatoes such as Rudolph or Mozart. I have also used Cyprus potatoes in the past but these have a bit of an earthy flavour to them which some people aren't too keen on.)

150 ml of full fat milk.

150ml of double cream.

1 clove of garlic, crushed with the flat of a knife.

3 sprigs of thyme.

A good grate of whole nutmeg.

about 3 tablespoons of butter.

Salt and ground black pepper.

Method:

Heat your oven to 150 degrees c./gas mark 2.

Put the milk, cream, thyme and crushed garlic in a saucepan and heat to just about boiling, remove from the heat, grate in the nutmeg and allow to infuse whilst you do the potatoes.

Peel the potatoes and slice with the mandolin, using the handle provided to make sure you don't lose any
finger tips. ( my mom had a horrible accident from not using the handle and I wouldn't want you to do the same, just sayin!)
 

There's usually a dial on the side of the mandolin to adjust
the thickness, you want to set it so the slices come out
about the thickness of a 50p piece.
 If you're slicing the spuds by hand then just slice them
as thin as you can and try to keep them all about the same thickness.












Pop your sliced potatoes in a large colander in the sink and give them a good rinse, moving them round to get rid of the starch, for a good 5 minutes. then lay the slices out on a clean tea towel to remove any excess water. Turn them over on the tea towel to get both sides dry.











Start layering the slices in the buttered gratin dish, seasoning every second layer with salt and pepper.

When you have layered up half the slices pour over half of the infused cream/ milk, through a sieve to remove any stray bits of thyme.













Finish layering the rest of the slices, seasoning as you go, until you've used up all the potatoes, then, pour over the rest of the infused cream/ milk.

Dot the top with the butter, cover tightly with tin foil and put in the oven on the middle shelf. (Now is the time to get your Beef Wellingtons started.)
Bake for 1 hour, then remove the foil and continue to bake for about another 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and crispy. As a quick test for done-ness, stick a sharp pointed knife right in the middle of the Dauphinois slowly, you should be able to tell that the dish is done if the knife goes through the potatoes with little resistance.

I find it's best to let it stand for about 20 minutes for the potatoes to soak up all of the cream mixture and set a little.

Beef Wellington Recipe:

Equipment:

 

Frying pan.

Food processor.

Rolling pin.

Baking sheet.

Pastry brush.

Ingredients ( for 4 Welly's.):

4 pieces of beef fillet, about 150g each.

1 pack of ready made puff pastry. ( I can make my own puff pastry, but to be honest, it's a long process to make it yourself and I find the ready made stuff more than adequate.)

4 medium field mushrooms.

about 50g of shitake mushrooms or mixed wild mushrooms.( you can get these dried, as I've used here, just pour over boiling water and allow to re-hydrate overnight in the fridge, or use fresh if you can get them.)

2 shallots, finely diced.

1 plump clove of garlic, pressed or finely diced.

2 tablespoons of butter.

3 sprigs of fresh thyme, picked from the stems, or 1 teaspoon of dried thyme leaves.

1 egg, beaten, for the egg wash.

Method:

First of all make your mushroom duxelle:

Roughly chop your field mushrooms and the re-hydrated wild mushrooms and blitz in food processor till you have a smooth-ish puree.













Put the puree in a tea towel and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. ( you'll be surprised how much water comes out!)

leave to one side and heat the frying pan to medium heat.

Saute the finely diced shallots in half of the butter in the frying pan, without colouring, for about 10 minutes.

After ten minutes, add the pureed mushrooms, the garlic and the thyme and gently fry for  about 15 minutes until you have a good, dark, fairly firm duxelle. season with salt and pepper then add the remaining butter and remove from the heat.








Wipe the frying pan and turn the heat up. add a splash of oil and wait till the pan is smoking hot, then carefully place in 2 of the fillet steaks to seal. Fry on one side for 30 seconds, then turn them over. Fry again for another 30 seconds and remove from the pan,
You don't want to cook them through, just get some nice browning on the outside. Pop them straight in the fridge while you do the same to the remaining two steaks.( I like to wrap them loosely in empty butter wrappers to keep them moist and baste them a little while they rest in the fridge.)





Now, cut your puff pastry into 4 and roll each piece out to about 4 mm thickness, making sure they are large enough to wrap the filling entirely.

Brush each one with the beaten egg ( this prevents the steak from making the pastry soggy inside.) and place a tablespoon of the mushroom duxelle in the middle.

Then place one of your sealed steaks on top of the duxelle.

Bring the corners of the pastry over the top of the steak to form a square parcel, being careful not to tear the pastry.

bottom of the wellington, completely sealed.

Then gently fold in the points of the parcel and squeeze together to seal. then turn them over so the duxelle is on the top.
 I like to then shape the Wellingtons into a ball shape, but you can leave them square if you like, just make sure they are completely sealed with no tears in the pastry.

top of the wellington.

Put the wellingtons on a suitable board or tray and brush them all over with the egg wash, then put back in the fridge for about 20 minutes. ( by this time your Dauphinois should be ready to come out of the oven.)











Turn the oven up to about 190 degrees c/ gas mark 5.


Remove the Wellingtons from the fridge and put onto a clean baking sheet, then put on a low shelf in the oven. Bake for about 25 minutes until they are golden brown.












As it's asparagus season here in England, and we grow the best asparagus in the world, AND it is my very favourite veg then I've served my welly and Dauphinois with some simple peeled, blanched asparagus, tossed in a little butter, with a red wine gravy. ( I had this already in the freezer, I will do the recipe for you in a couple of weeks.)

And there you have it! classic, sophisticated food for the discerning diner!
I hope you've enjoyed this weeks blog, I'm getting some really good feedback, especially on Twitter, about my recipes and I'd like to thank everyone who's taken the time to read them and cook them too!

Next weeks recipe blog is going to be a couple of fantastic desserts, then the week after, I'm off to Morocco for a week, so I'll be having a break from blogging till I get back, then you can expect some North-African inspired recipes!

Until next time, then.

Happy Cooking!

 

Mat. 

pop up at cherry reds

Hey there ravenous readers, welcome back to my food blog!

This week's blog is a little different from usual as over Sunday and Monday this week I got the chance to help out with my great friend, and all around barbecue pit-master , Andy Stubbs with his first ever "pop-up" restaurant night.

For those of you that don't know, a "pop-up", in cooking terms, is when either a restaurant opens up for a short term of, perhaps, 6 months in a disused shop or unit (there's a really good one in Birmingham at the moment called Adams restaurant. Where the Michelin starred chef, Adam Stokes and his wife, have opened up for a limited time.) Or, as in this case, when a street food vendor takes over the kitchen of a restaurant for a night and serves their own food.

It's a great idea, if you ask me. The restaurant capitalise on the popularity of the street food scene, and fills it's dining room with hungry diners on nights where they might usually be quiet and the street food vendor gets to showcase their food to a new audience and experience a professional kitchen, sometimes, as in Andy's case, for the first time. Everyone's a winner!

MEAT THE BOSS!

So, a little bit about Andy and his street food stall first.

He and his partner Donna started trading as  Low n' slow American style street food. 
just last year in June. After working in various mundane jobs, and doing a bit of Djing on the side Andy found himself at a loose end when he got made redundant, and, as he had always been interested in food (Andy always supported me with all of my restaurant ventures after I was on Masterchef.) Decided to see if he could make a living from it.
He began experimenting with different foods and cooking methods until it became clear that American style, properly smoked, street food was the way forward. I daresay that he was influenced by the popularity of the brilliant TV show "man V's food" which, I must admit, made me want to go out and start an American diner myself!
So he and Donna started to work out a business plan and applied for a business loan which, together with his redundancy and Donna's wage got them off the ground.

Meanwhile he started cooking and using family gatherings and parties to gauge opinion on his food, each time adjusting recipes and using different cuts of meat to improve his product. After a few Saturday afternoons of selling pulled pork and chilli cobs from his garage, and a bit of a stint at a local pub selling burgers and more pulled pork it was time to take things to the next level so, it was off to Digbeth Dining Club to meet the owner and take him a sample of brisket chilli with a view to becoming one of the regular traders there.

I can still remember how nervous he was, I'm sure he was visibly shaking when he handed over his chilli to owner and runner of the Digbeth Dining Club, Jack Brabant. all the way home he was saying "that's not the best chilli I've ever done, I wasn't happy with the seasoning, I don't even know if Jack will taste it, it won't be as nice when it's re-heated, etc, etc,etc!)

The boss and his boys!

Andy needn't have worried, I had tried it and I thought it was great, and this was before he had even got himself a proper smoker. Inevitably, the phone call came from Jack and Andy started trading at Digbeth a couple of weeks later. he invested in cool livery for his stall, all the equipment he needed and, most importantly of all his first smoker. he now has 2 of his
own and another he has to regularly borrow from
another of the traders at Digbeth, the excellent
 The Mexican Bean.

Andy's portfolio of smoked goodies now extends to smoked beef ribs, smoked ox cheeks, brisket chilli and his own bacon. And he makes his own recipe BBQ sauce, BBQ beans  and various types of slaw to accompany the meat. His popularity amongst the other street food traders is phenomenal, as it is with his customers.
All of them know that his passion is second to none, and that passion always shines through in his food. He also does regular stints at Warwick university, In Birmingham city centre and does festivals, weddings and birthday parties, all in all, its been quite a year for Low n' Slow!
And to top off a fantastic first year he has been nominated for trader of the year at the midland leg of the street food awards, an event which will see almost 20 street traders descend on Digbeth this Friday ( 2nd may.) to ply their wares.

Well that's enough back story, so lets talk about the smoking process. It's really quite simple, the meat is cooked in a sealed unit over various types of wood and charcoal,  at a low temperature, around 80-90 degrees c. for a long time.
The joints of pork ( called cross-cuts.) that Andy uses for his pulled pork are rubbed all over with a secret blend of salt, sugar and spices and then smoked for around 18hrs, all the time the temperature has to be regulated, so, for instance, if the temp drops too low at, say, 4 o'clock in the morning, an alarm will go off and Andy will have to get up and tend to his smoker, just like any parent has to do with a new born baby! The smoke created in the smoker will form a "bark" on the outside of the meat which, at first glance, may look like it's burnt but believe me it isn't. The "bark" is, obviously, the most smoky tasting part of the meat but when the joint is pulled, and the bark distributed through the inner softer juicy meat then the smoky flavour gets into all of the meat. It's not overpowering and doesn't taste like a bonfire but it really does give a unique taste. If you've got the time, patience and dedication then any meat can be cooked in this way, although its things like brisket, ribs, both pork and beef,pork belly, fillet of lamb and other cheaper, tougher cuts of meat that benefit the most from the slow cooking process of smoking.

So, onto the pop up then!
Andy had been asked to do a night at  Cherry Reds Cafe.
in Birmingham, and he asked me if I could go over to help him, so i booked the Monday off work and gave my chef's whites a good wash!

I went to see Andy at his house on the Sunday to take some photo's for this blog and see if I could relieve him of any secrets, unfortunately, I did learn quite a few things but as I'm now part of the low n' Slow inner circle, I cant tell you any of them! apart from a recipe for the BBQ beans which I've adapted to make it easier for anyone who doesn't have a smoker and ll share with you later in the blog.

Andy's BBQ beans, ready to go on the smoker.

For the smoked ribs Andy had imported racks direct from the USA where, because of the grain fed cattle, you get a magnificently marbled piece of beef that you just can't get with beef from Britain.

















These were simply to be rubbed with salt, pepper and a little sugar before being smoked for 7 hours each.

He also showed me some pork ribs that he had been smoking, just to use the meat in the BBQ beans, which smelled incredible and were fall-off-the bone tender. With all of the meat prepped and the beans on the smoker there was nothing else for me to do but to come home and do some BBQ style beans of my own to share with you, so here's my recipe:

BBQ beans Recipe, ( enough for about 8 portions.)

Equipment:

1 large saucepan.

Ingredients:

4 rashers of well smoked fatty bacon.
1 large beef shin bone, sawn in half. ( ask your butcher, they will give you some bones. I like to use Westwoods butchers in Cheslyn Hay, just by the church as they have an abattoir round the back and will give you as many bones as you want, and will even cut them up for you if you ask nicely!)
3 tins of cannellini beans in water.
1 stick of cassia bark, or 1 stick of cinnamon.
2 red onions, finely diced.
2 tablespoons of tomato puree.
2 tins of chopped tomatoes.
1 tablespoon of smoked paprika.
3 cloves of garlic, crushed in a press or finely sliced.
1 tablespoon of brown sugar.
1 teaspoon of dried thyme leaves.
1 teaspoon of crushed dried chillis.
juice of half a lemon.
Dried chillis, 1 of each. ( I used 1 ancho chilli, 1 Morita chilli and 1 guajillo chilli, you can get them easily on line and aren't too hot, but they do add a good deal of smoky flavour to the beans.)
1 teaspoon of whole cumin seeds.
1 beef stock cube.
1 fresh green chilli, finely chopped.
salt and pepper.

Method.

Heat a large saucepan to medium, chop the bacon into lardons and drop them in the pot. fry for 3-4 minutes then add the chopped red onions, the cassia bark or cinnamon stick, and all of the dry herbs and spices.
after about 5 minutes put in the shin bones.
Add the tomato puree, crushed garlic, stock cube, tinned tomatoes, brown sugar and dried chillis, turn up the heat  and allow to come to the boil.
Add the cannellini beans, with the water from the tins and bring back to the boil.
Turn down the heat to low and simmer gently, uncovered for about 30 minutes.
Remove the shin bones and scrape out as much of the bone marrow as you can into the beans.
add the lemon juice and taste.
season with salt and pepper.

READY TO COME OFF THE SMOKER.

These beans are great served with anything from fried fish to steak and eggs, or even just on liberally buttered toast!

Okay then, on with the story.

I arrived at Andy's on Monday just in time to see some of the beef ribs coming off the smoker.
I gotta say the smell was incredible, the beefiest beefy smell you could ever imagine! and for a change, when i walked into his house it was them i could smell, rather than the smoking pulled pork that usually permeates the entire neighbourhood! ( in case you hadn't guessed, Andy does all his cooking at home and keeps it in hot boxes to transport to wherever he's setting up his stall. don't worry though, he's been well and truly inspected and has got a 5 star hygiene rating!)




While he packed his hot boxes I got on with the chopping for the slaw, not the kind of coleslaw you get in shops, drowned in cheap mayonnaise, but fresh vibrant red cabbage and white cabbage slaw with a simple oil, cider vinegar, white wine vinegar and lemon juice,sugar, salt and pepper dressing.
 When we were all prepped up we loaded up the van and set off to a secret bakery destination to pick up Andy's bespoke brioche buns, then it was on to Brum and Cherry Reds!

We unloaded the van and introduced ourselves to Laura who would be in charge of service for us, then had a look round the small kitchen.

with it's window facing out onto the street! ( a new one on me, I must admit!)



While we faffed about with the equipment  I got my first look at the menu.





The delicious and rich sounding dessert, by the way was made by Andy's mom, and, I can confirm, was as good as it sounds!








 So, we got ourselves set up, met the waiting staff and stood on our guard for the first orders.
We didn't have to wait long, as the first order came through within about 10 minutes and it was go, go, go from then on all night! As Andy hadn't worked a proper kitchen before I got on with doing the pass, and frying off the chips whilst he portioned up the ribs and built the pulled pork buns, the brisket chilli cobs, dressed the slaw's and served the beans. There weren't many chances to take photos as we were busy all night, but I managed to squeeze in a few, especially of the beef ribs which were, and I'm not even joking about this, THE BEST PIECE OF MEAT I HAVE EVER TASTED!!!!

Juicy to the point of the meat actually dripping with it!
Savoury and rich, and sooo tender the meat cut like butter. I could actually hear Andy giggle like a schoolgirl every time he took a fresh rack out of the hot box to slice.

There's not much more I can say really, it's all a bit of a blur! but we did 50 mains, 20 sides of brisket and pulled pork and plenty of that gorgeous rich, heady tart Andy's mom made.

After a clean down of the kitchen I took a few photos in the bar and we went upstairs to where the Low n' Slow diners had eaten and met a few people, all of them had a really good meal and were full of praise for Andy's food. I gotta say at this point that it was the best time I've had in a professional kitchen for a long time and it sparked a feeling of satisfaction in me that i haven't felt for a long time, It made me want to be a working chef again!
So, after saying our goodbyes, collecting the money and loading up the van again we were off home, both of us deliriously happy! I'm going to be working with Andy more and more over the coming months and I hope to do more of this kind of thing, it's exciting, it's rewarding and it's so much fun, I can't tell you!

Well, that's it for this weeks blog, back to normal service next week but this Sunday I've got a helper in my kitchen at Chez Barnos so there should be some better pictures!

Thanks for reading, dear friends and see ya soon.

until next time,

Happy Eating! 

Mat.