Beef Wellington

Traditionally Beef Wellington is a fillet steak coated in pate and duxelles (a mixture of finely chopped mushrooms, onions and herbs, sauteed in butter and reduced to a paste), wrapped in puff pastry and baked. This recipe is a little different as it does not use pate and includes a wrapping of prosciutto and crepes. The prosciutto helps the beef to hold its shape while cooking and the crepes stop the beef coming in contact with the pastry and making it soggy.
This recipe was in the Masterchef magazine, Issue 1 and can also be found at http://www.masterchef.com.au/beef-wellington.htm The magazine and website recipes do differ a little.
The first step is to make a crepe mixture. On the website it says to use 2 cups of plain flour, 2 eggs and 2 1/2 cups milk but the magazine only uses 1 cup plain flour, 2 eggs and 1 1/2 cups milk. You only need 4 good crepes and this mixture made 6 to allow for a couple of disasters. I would use the quantities in the magazine.
For the sauce you fry some beef bones (I could only buy ox tail and that seemed to work fine) and then cook them in the oven. The web site says 500g but the magazine says 1kg. Put the bones in a saucepan, drain some fat from fry pan and cook some eschalots, peppercorns, thyme sprigs, bay leaf and garlic. Add some port and red wine and reduce. Add this mixture to the saucepan and pour over some veal stock, boil until reduced to about 2 cups and strain. The website uses less stock (500ml as opposed to 1L) and adds some veal glaze (which is very expensive) which is really not necessary as the resulting jus was deliciously thick and rich as it was. Just before serving you reheat and stir through some butter to give it some shine and extra flavour. You could make the jus the day before and just add the  butter when you reheat it. The website uses 40g of butter but the 20g in the magazine was plenty.

To make the mushroom duxelles you soak some porcini mushrooms (the magazine uses 20g but the website uses 80g..these are very exensive and the 20g was enough) then process them until finely chopped with some swiss brown mushrooms, garlic and eschalots. Cook until reduced to a a thick paste then add in herbs. The website actually cooks the mushrooms, eschalots and garlic before processing!

Next you seal the beef, season and wrap firmly in gladwrap before placing in the fridge to cool (the website skips this step but it does help to give the beef a more even shape).

Lay the prosciutto slices (10 slices) onto some baking paper. The website uses 5 slices Iberico ham.

Spread the mushroom mixture over the top.

Place the beef in the middle and spread with dijon mustard.

Wrap prosciutto and mushroom duxelles around beef.

Lay the 4 crepes onto baking paper and cut out corners to form a cross shape....I trimmed to a rectangle and used my off cuts to make a cross which wasn't quite right (didn't read my recipe properly)!

Wrap the crepes around the beef covering the ends first. Wrap firmly in gladwrap and freeze for 10 minutes (I think you could freeeze for a little longer).

Roll careme puff pastry (this is an all butter hand made puff pastry which is found in delis...not cheap but fantastic to handle and great flavour and puff) onto floured baking paper, cut out corners to form a cross and wrap beef wellington. Cut out a 5cm disc from scraps with a 1cm hole in middle. Cut a 1 cm hole in the top of the pastry on wellington and place disc over it. This allows the steam to excape. Place on a baking paper lined roasting dish or oven tray. Brush with beaten egg yolks and salt and freeze 10 minutes. The website suggests you repeat this process twice.

Cook at 200 degrees C for 35 mins for med-rare or reduce heat to 150-160 degrees C and cook longer if desired. Interestingly the magazine said 25 mins for med-rare for a 800g piece beef and the website said 35 mins for 500g! After 60 mins mine was still pretty rare but my oven does lose a lot of heat when you open it. I would cook 800g for 1 hour 20 mins to get med-well (about 65 degrees C on a meat thermometer) but that is my personal preference!

Rest 15 mins, slice and serve with buttered beans, tarragon sprigs and the wonderful thick brown jus. Tarragon has an aniseed flavour which worked well with the beans. With all the layers this is quite a filling meal and you really don't need potatoes or anything else with it.
Next time I make this I will try to wrap each layer a little more firmly so it holds its shape better when cut. It was fiddly and time consuming but worth it!
Rating 8-9 out of 10.