AppsScraps

On Sunday night we had Blee over for beef wellington. Now, G and I have made beef wellingtons umpteen times, including wee individual beef wellingtons for the Ten Course Dinner. We, naturally, are fans of Gordon Ramsey’s ridiculous show, Hell’s Kitchen, and were so stumped that these chefs were stumped by the art of beef wellington week after week after week. Com’on Gordon… you’re a master chef, for gawd sake teach!

Beef wellingtons take all of 15 minutes prep and then 30-or-so minutes in the oven. Do not be afraid of the wrapping meat in puff pastry, you can do it!

1) sear your beef tenderloin on all sides; 2) then saute butter, mushrooms, shallots and a pinch of thyme till dry

3) add 2 tbsp of red wine and saute till dry again; 4) G and Blee hard at work in the kitchen

5) cover the beef in mustard of your choice – dijon here; 6) roll out your puff pastry

7) distribute the mushroom/shallot mixture onto the pastry; 8) add the beef and then wrap

9) wrap more, and; 10) you’re done

11) brush with egg; 12) pop in hot oven for 20-30 minutes and then let sit 10 minutes before serving

13) mmmmmm

What are those alien-looking things you wonder? … those are a uniquely Canadian dish called fiddleheads. Fiddleheads are a forest fern that we seem to get all hot and bothered about at this time of year. Very yummy but very important to wash them extremely well before cooking. I blanched these and then finished them off in the frypan with some butter and salt and pepper.

14) aliens!; 15) nah, just fiddleheads soaking in water