Week 13: Beef Wellington

Hi everyone!

Frankly, this week’s culinary undertaking was an absolute disaster. I never want to taste, see, or even think about a beef wellington ever again. As much as I'd love to blame a subpar recipe, Gordon’s instructions were pretty damn clear. Truth be told, my beef wellie was doomed before I even entered the kitchen.

It all started at Coles. The recipe asked for 1 kg of beef eye fillet, but my mum made it pretty clear that a 35 dollar hunk of meat wasn’t going to happen. So I settled with 1.1kg of blade roast, thinking it’s all beef, what could possibly go wrong?

The answer to that question is apparently: everything.

Pastry and duxelles

Before I recount the tragedies, why don’t we kick off with the positives?

Pastry: Gordon’s rough puff pastry recipe was a dream. It was similar to last week’s pastry, but this time I didn’t even have to whip out my wheezy old food processor!

Duxelles: What kind of pain in the ass decided that mushrooms had to be the consistency of ‘coarse breadcrumbs’? Thankfully, my 20 minutes spent finely chopping mushrooms was well worth it. Even though I used really, really old goon in the duxelle mixture, not a single family member of mine threw up. In my books, that’s a bloody solid win.

Beef

Right. This did not go well. This did not go well at all. In fact, talking about it makes my heart feel rather raw- much like my slab of beef. I wish I could travel back in time, and tell my past self: don’t be a stinge, listen to Gordon. Buy a bank breaking piece of meat. It’ll save you the tears.

Basically, wellingtons are meant to be cylindrical. My blade roast wasn’t even a shape that I could name; it was a twisted, polygon-like lump. When I laid it out on the prosciutto with the duxelles, it was quite clear that my wellie was not going to hold its shape. But oh well, I covered my mini disaster with the lovely pastry and shoved it into the oven.

A horrible photo of a truly
horrible dish

Appearances are so deceiving

When I took my wellie out of the oven, a glimmer of hope erupted within me. It's a miracle, I thought, it's like the tale of the ugly duckling! The utter ruin which entered the oven came out all golden brown and perfect! 

I spoke too soon. When I cut through the pastry, it looked like a slaughterhouse- there was so much damn blood. I know nothing about beef, but even I knew that I couldn’t pass that off as rare. Now, imagine eating a bleeding, leather boot. That's what this beef tasted like.

Ranking rubric

Taste: 3/10- to quote my step sister ‘everything but the meat was good’

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 5.5/10- before cutting: 9, after cutting: 2

Time: 3/10- this monstrosity was 3 hours in the making

Kitchen Mess: 8/10- Well at least the kitchen didn’t look to bad, ay?

Thanks for reading about my failures!

Cheers,

Rosa