On Christmas Day I bravely set out to make beef wellington for 14 guests. I found a 4.6-pound beef tenderloin at Costco, but the tenderloin was so long I had to cut it into two pieces to wrap it in pastry and fit it into a pan.

I have a computer in the kitchen area, so I had both the Gordon Ramsay recipe I was following (http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/164868/Gordon-Ramsay-s-beef-Wellington) and the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrF8G06HqaM) to reference while cooking.  For American measurement conversions, you might go to this website: http/simplyrecipes.com/recipes/beef_wellington/

Everything is fairly straightforward, except the seasoning part. The recipe does not mention seasoning, but while watching the video you see Gordon rub the filet with seasoning and when he makes the mushroom puree he also used seasoning. I have actually never seen him on TV, so it’s possible that those that follow him know what he uses for seasoning, but I was totally in the dark. Nearly every meat dish I make gets some form of garlic in it, so I rubbed my filet with a garlic salt and ground pepper. I put some red wine and Worcestershire sauce into the mushroom puree.

The recipe calls for English mustard for brushing the meat. I found some Coleman’s Original English mustard at my local grocery store. I tasted it to see what the difference was from our American yellow and was alarmed to find that at first taste, it tasted like a spicy vegemite. I know most Americans have never tasted vegemite, but this is the only food that I can compare it to and could not imagine adding it to meat as a flavoring. I came very close to not putting it on the meat.

Everything went fairly well; the meat tasted great (even with the English mustard) and was tender, but I do have some lessons learned:

– Use a smaller beef tenderloin filet, even at 2+ pounds each, mine were hard to wrap

– Be sure to really brown the meat before proceeding with the rest of the recipe

– In the video, Gordon scores his wellington before he puts it into the oven. I forgot to and I think allowing steam to escape would have prevented all of the liquid that had built up inside.

Here’s a slice of my beef wellington

~merry carter~