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.