Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington

This is a brief post on the Beef Wellington we prepared during Christmas Eve. You can always make one during special occasions or when there's a craving for it.

I modified Gordon Ramsay's YouTube video recipe.

The first step is to season the tenderloin (we bought about 700g) with some salt and black pepper before searing it in a hot frying pain. I used a tablespoon of ghee instead of butter because ghee has a higher smoking point. Be sure to sear all around the beef but don't over-cook it.

Pan-seared tenderloin

Let the beef cool down and pat dry with paper towels before brushing a layer of Dijon mustard on it.

Tenderloin brushed with Dijon mustard

While resting the beef, prepare the duxelles. Mince the mushrooms (400g) with a clove of garlic, season with salt and pepper. Add in chestnuts (handful) to blend as well. I used the frying pan I seared the beef with, since there's still the ghee in it, to stir-fry the duxelles. I added a chopped onion to the hot ghee first and once the onion is softened, I added in the blended mixture.

Stir-fry the mixture with a sprig of thyme. After a while, you will notice that the mixture releases a lot of fluids (mainly from the mushrooms), continue stirring until the mixture is dry. Then add 50ml of red wine and 2 teaspoon of dark soya sauce and continue cooking until the mixture is dry again. Remove from the pan and let it cool down. Remove the thyme from the mixture.

Making duxelles - mixture of minced mushrooms, chestnuts and seasoning

Once the beef and the duxelles are cooled, place a few layers of cling film on the table, then put 1 to 2 pieces of filo dough on the cling film. It is useful to absorb the juices that are released from the beef and prevents the puff pastry from being soggy. Next, layer a few pieces of parma ham (we used 8 pieces). The width of the parma ham layer is slightly wider than the width of the tenderloin by 2 to 3 cm on both sides.

Preparing to wrap the cooled ingredients. Layer of filo dough and parma ham arranged on a cling film for easy rolling

Spread the duxelles onto the parma ham. There's no need to put too much, around 1 cm thickness is more than enough.

Layer of duxelles spread onto the parma ham

Place the beef on the lower third of the layers and roll it up with the help of the cling film.

Tenderloin placed on top of the duxelles

Twist and tighten the sides of the cling film to compact the roll. Leave it in the fridge to firm up before wrapping it with the puff pastry.

Rolled into a sausage-like structure, tightened by the cling film

I use ready-made puff pastry that is made with butter and not margarine.

Using ready-made butter puff pastry

Once the roll is firm, remove the cling film and wrap the puff pastry over the filo dough using the same method as above (with the help of a cling film and tighten the structure). You can then put it back in the fridge again until you are ready to cook it. Before baking, egg wash the puff pastry and use the back of a knife to draw some patterns on the pastry, be careful not to cut through it.

Puff pastry is wrapped over the filo dough, remember to remove the cling film first

In your free time, you can do up some decorations using the leftover puff pastry. :)

Extra puff pastry used for decoration

I roast the Beef Wellington in a convection over at 220C for 10mins, then rotate it and lower the temperature to 200C for another 30 mins. Your mileage may vary.

Beef Wellington done, and decoration in place

Sliced open to reveal medium rare tenderloin

Note:
Beef registers 48.8C to 54.4C on an instant-read thermometer for rare, 54.4C to 57.2C for medium rare.
Cover pastry with foil if it gets too brown while cooking.
You can spread a layer of foie gras or liver pate on the duxelles.

Savory Bacon Jam

I was introduced to bacon jam by a colleague one day. Being a lover of unhealthy food (tasty food is usually unhealthy, haha!), I went to a local cafe (Jewel Café+Bar) that serves homemade bacon jam to try it out for breakfast the very next morning with my significant half, Esther.

Bacon jam doesn't taste like the typical fruit jam at all. It tasted like a fusion of bacon, bak kwa (a type of Chinese BBQ pork jerky) and caramelised char siew (a type of Cantonese BBQ pork). Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the taste of it. It is oily (bacon fat, duh!), sweet, salty, spicy and has a tinge of sourness with an underlying coffee aroma. In the cafe we went to, it was served with chunky slices of baguette (the dish is called Fat Soldiers, haha!). I think bacon jam goes well with everything, but that's just me...

"Fat Soldiers" from Jewel Café+Bar

On the way back from the cafe, I was already googling for recipes of bacon jam. I didn't know that it is so popular yet very simple to make as well. And as a bonus, there can be many variations to it. You need something sweet (sugar/maple syrup/honey), something salty (comes with the bacon), something sour (apple cider vinegar/balsamic vinegar/Worcestershire sauce), something spicy (mustard/hot sauce/paprika/chili powder/pepper) to give some heat and coffee. Most recipes include aromatics as well such as garlic, shallots and onions. You can add whatever ingredient you want as long as you stick to the above criteria. Some recipes even add a touch of alcohol like bourbon.

Being the experimental me, I looked for the most appealing recipe, and added extra ingredients from other recipes to round up the taste. The only "difficult" part of making bacon jam is the simmering and stirring to reduce the mass into semi-solid sludge. You can use a slow cooker for the simmering stage.

Without further delays, I present to you, our experimental bacon jam...

Ingredients
2kg bacon, (we used 1kg bacon back and 1kg streaky bacon)
3 big white onions (sweet variety), peeled and roughly sliced
7 to 10 shallot, peeled and roughly sliced
5 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
250ml pure maple syrup
60ml balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
100g brown sugar
freshly ground black pepper to taste
salt to taste (you can use the drained liquid obtained while cooking the bacon, see below)

120ml strong brewed coffee (how strong you want it to be is up to you, I actually used 2 tbsp of instant espresso)

Water if the jam is too dry during simmering
Alcohol (optional, maybe during festive seasons)

You have to cut the bacon into thin slices and cooked them over medium high heat until the fat is rendered and the bacon bits are brown and crisp. Do not over-cook them at this stage or you will get very tough bits.

Half-way through, there will be a lot of liquid released by the bacon. Drain it out to reduce the saltiness. You can always add some of the fluid back later on. If there is a lot of oil released when the bacon is crisp, you can drain it into a separate bowl as well in case you want to add back some at a later stage. Because we used half bacon back and half streaky bacon, it wasn't that oily.

Sliced bacon in frying pan

Once the bacon is crisp and you can add in the aromatics (garlic, shallot and onion). Cook using medium heat until the aromatics are softened. During this time, you can mix the brown sugar, maple syrup, vinegar, Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl and stir to mix.

Cooking the bacon with the aromatics

We had to transfer the contents into a HappyCall pot since it is bigger than our frying pan and is non-sticky as well.

Once the aromatics are softened, pour in the prepared sauce and mix.

Add in black pepper and the salty liquid collected previously. Adjust according to your taste and preference.

Pour in the coffee once you are satisfied. Bring the whole mixture to a boil then reduce the heat to simmer. Cover the pot with a lid to prevent it from drying up too fast. Stir occasionally. You can use a slow cooker at this stage. If the mixture is too dry, don't add any more of the salty liquid or you might end up making it too salty. You can add some water and continue simmering. We simmered ours for about 4 hours. During that time, we were making macarons, so it wasn't that boring. ;)

Once that is done, off the heat and let it cool down before using a blender to blend it. Before blending, if you find the bacon jam not oily enough, you can add in the oil you collected previously when you were frying the bacon.

You can decide on the consistency of the bacon jam. We prefer ours to have some bits and pieces in it so we only blended it slightly instead of blending it into a paste. If you like to drink it like a milkshake, then by all means, blend it at full speed for a few minutes. :p

Bacon jam with garnishing

I think our version looks nicer and tastes better than the cafe's version. But I may be bias.  :) 

The bigger bacon bits were added in just for the photo shoot. But you can actually fry up extra bacon bits and add them after the bacon jam has been blended. There is no hard and fast rules to this recipe.

Bacon jam to complement Eggs Benedict or is it the other way round? :)

Esther cooked up something just for the bacon jam photo shoot. I noticed the Eggs Benedict tasted even better with the bacon jam! She dressed it up so well that she managed to trick her sister into thinking that this photo came from a cafe. LOL!

During the festive seasons, instead of adding water to simmer, try using red wine. We will be doing that and will post how it taste after that.

PS. All things (good or bad) must come in moderation. Please don't eat this everyday and end up with a heart attack!