Beef Wellington is a baked steak dish made out of fillet steak and duxelles wrapped in shortcrust pastry. Some recipes include wrapping the contents in prosciutto, or dry-cured ham, which helps retain moisture while preventing the pastry from becoming soggy; use of puff pastry;[1] or coating the beef in mustard. Classical recipes may include pâté.[2]
A whole tenderloin may be wrapped and baked, and then sliced for serving, or the tenderloin may be sliced into individual portions before wrapping and baking.[3]
Naming
While historians generally believe that the dish is named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, the precise origin of the name is unclear and no definite connection between the dish and the duke has been found.[4]
Leah Hyslop, writing in The Daily Telegraph, observed that by the time Wellington became famous, meat baked in pastry was a well-established part of English cuisine, and that the dish's similarity to the French filet de bœuf en croûte (fillet of beef in pastry)[dubious–discuss] might imply that "beef Wellington" was a "timely patriotic rebranding of a trendy continental dish".[5]
Early sources
There is a recipe for Filet à la Wellington in an Austrian cookbook of 1891 consisting of a tenderloin wrapped in pastry, with optional bacon but no mushrooms, and served with truffle sauce or pickles.[6]
There is an 1899 reference in a menu from the Hamburg-America line.[7] The earliest US attestation is in 1899[8]; it also appears in the Los Angeles Times of 1903. A 1910 Polish cookbook includes Polędwica wołowa à la Wellington 'beef fillet à la Wellington' including duxelles, and served with a truffle or Madeira sauce. The author claimed that she had received this recipe from the cook of the imperial court in Vienna.[9][10]
The 1923 edition of Le Répertoire de la Cuisine, a professional reference cookbook mentions a "Wellington" recipe for beef: "Barded fillet browned in butter and in the oven, coated in poultry stuffing with dry duxelles added, placed in rolled-out puff pastry. Cooked in the oven. Garnished with peeled tomatoes, lettuce, Pommes château".[11]
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