Hillcrest residents share a slice of their heritage: Beef Wellington
Each week, we will feature meal inspired by a local resident's heritage.
TO celebrate Heritage Month, the Highway Mail will run a weekly recipe column that features local residents proudly sharing a slice of their heritage.
This week, Hillcrest‘s Rhett and Karyn Smith made a juicy Beef Wellington, an English pie made with fillet steak, prosciutto, a symphony of other tasty ingredients, all wrapped up in a sheet of puff pastry.
Ingredients:
-A good beef fillet, about 1kg
-3 tbsp olive oil -250g mushrooms, include some wild ones if you like
-30g Chestnuts -150g Spinach
-50g butter
-1 large sprig fresh thyme
-12 slices prosciutto
-500g pack puff pastry, thawed if frozen
-2 egg yolks, beaten with 1 tsp water flour, for dusting
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Method:
Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7.
Season the 1kg beef fillet with salt and pepper, brush with 1 tbsp olive oil and sear in a hot pan, remove from the pan when seared all round. Then rest.
While the beef is cooling, chop 250g mushroom (and wild, if you like) as finely as possible so they have the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. You can use a food processor to do this, but make sure you pulse-chop the mushrooms so they don’t become a slurry. Add chestnuts and spinach
Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil and 50g butter in a large pan and fry the mushrooms on a medium heat, with 1 large sprig fresh thyme, for about 10 mins ,stirring often, until you have a softened mixture. Season the mushroom mixture. The mixture should hold its shape when stirred. Remove the mushroom mix from the pan to cool and discard the thyme.
Overlap two pieces of cling film over a large chopping board. Lay 12 slices of prosciutto on the cling film, slightly overlapping, in a double row. Spread half the mushroom mix over the prosciutto, then sit the fillet on top of it. Use the cling film’s edges to draw the prosciutto around the fillet, then roll it into a sausage shape, twisting the ends of cling film to tighten it as you go. Dust your work surface with a little flour.
Roll out a third of the 500g pack of puff pastry to a 18 x 30cm strip and place on a non-stick baking sheet.
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Roll out the remainder of the 500g pack of puff pastry to about 28 x 36cm.
Unravel the fillet from the cling film and sit it in the centre of the smaller strip of pastry. Beat the 2 egg yolks with 1 tsp water and brush the pastry’s edges, and the top and sides of the wrapped fillet.
Using a rolling pin, carefully lift and drape the larger piece of pastry over the fillet, pressing well into the sides. Trim the joins to about a 4cm rim. Seal the rim with the edge of a fork or spoon handle. Glaze all over with more egg yolk and, using the back of a knife, mark the beef Wellington with long diagonal lines taking care not to cut into the pastry.
Chill for at least 30 mins (up to 24 hrs). Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Brush the Wellington with a little more egg yolk and cook until golden and crisp for 20 to 25 mins for medium-rare beef, 30 mins for medium.
Allow to stand for 10 mins before serving in thick sauce. 
Caxton Local Media Covid-19 reporting
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