Beef Wellington

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Beef Wellington
Beef Wellington 2019.jpg
A beef Wellington sliced open
CourseMain
Serving temperatureHot
Main ingredientsBeef, shortcrust pastry, duxelles
  •   Commons-logo.svg Media: Beef Wellington
Beef Wellington, whole Beef Wellington - Whole.jpg
Beef Wellington, whole

Beef Wellington is a baked dish made out of beef tenderloin 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]

Contents

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

The dish is presumably named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, but the precise origin of the name is unclear and the connection between them is unknown. [4]

Leah Hyslop 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) 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]

Variations

In the Food Network show Good Eats , Alton Brown discusses a variant using the cheaper pork tenderloin instead of beef. [12] A common vegetarian variation of the dish, known as "beet Wellington", replaces the beef with beetroot and has been featured on food competition shows such as MasterChef Australia . [13] [14]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Oliver, Jamie. "Epic beef wellington recipe" . Retrieved 25 January 2025.
  2. ↑ Blanc, Raymond. "Beef Wellington" . Retrieved 25 January 2025.
  3. ↑ "Beef wellington". BBC Good Food. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
  4. ↑ Olver, Lynne. "Beef Wellington". The Food Timeline .
  5. ↑ Hyslop, Leah (21 August 2013). "Potted histories: Beef Wellington". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  6. ↑ Seleskowitz, Louise (1886). Wiener Kochbuch (in German) (5th ed.). Vienna: Lienhart. Recipe 508, p. 110.
  7. ↑ "First Class Menu, 10th Nov 1899, Hamburg-America line". menus.nypl.org. Archived from the original on 30 October 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
  8. ↑ "A Novel Menu Card". Scientific American . LXXXI (13): 202. 23 September 1899 – via Google Books.
  9. ↑ Ochorowicz-Monatowa, Marya (1910). Uniwersalna książka kucharska (in Polish). Lwów; Warszawa-Łódź: Księgarnia H. Altenberga; Ludwik Fiszer. pp. 52, 304.
  10. ↑ "Marya Ochorowicz-Monatowa "Uniwersalna książka kucharska"". Salon tradycji polskiej (in Polish). Muzeum Lwowa i Kresów. Archived from the original on 16 February 2019.
  11. ↑ Gringoire, Th.; Saulnier, L. (1923). Le Répertoire de la Cuisine. Internet Archive (3rd ed.). Maison Allard, London. p. 163.
  12. ↑ Brown, Alton (30 May 2015). "Tender is the Pork". Food Network. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  13. ↑ "Vegan Beet Wellington". Gordon Ramsay Restaurants. Retrieved 30 August 2024.
  14. ↑ "Pressure Test: Flynn McGarry's Beet Wellington". IMDb. Retrieved 30 August 2024.
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