Wednesday, December 31, 2008

There's a beef wellington in the works...

Hello all! The holidays have kept me quite busy. Can anyone else identify?

This evening we are hosting friends for dinner, and I will do my best to impress with a kick-ass beef wellington. This is a dish i have often strayed from because it is known for being tough to get right. A particular story always comes to mind involving a chef that once came to my parents house to prepare his special beef wellington. As the story goes, chef took hours and hours and hours to make his specialty. To pass the time, he glugged down several bottles of wine and made a complete fool of himself. To this day, I am not sure if Chef Wino even actually finished preparing the meal.

At any rate, I'll provide a full recipe, and pictures tomorrow ( providing it doesn't take so long to make that I drink myself into oblivion...)

Happy New Years everyone! Be safe, and let's shove 2008 right on out the door.

1 comment:

Michelle said...

Hi Leslie...

I love innovating on recipes like the Beef Wellington you cooked up.

Here are a few versions I've made (that still gets big wows):

Cook up some puff pastry on a baking sheet (I just make big squares of puff pastry and put a few savory spices on top and a light mist of olive oil). Then make a beef tenderloin. Cut the puff pastry in half like a sandwich, layer with whatever you like (I prefer wilted spinach and a melange of sauteed mushrooms) and then build the "sandwich" with slices of tenderloin and top with a pan sauce made from the tenderloin skillet with some beef stock. Also, you can half cook some filet mignons, top with caramelized onions and mushrooms and a bit of pate, and cover in Pillsbury croissant dough and finish cooking in the oven. Both versions work well! Happy cooking!!