Home Food: Beef Wellington

Daddy asked: "What do you want for dinner"

Kat (thinking to herself): "What's the most ridiculous, unlikely thing ever... I know!"

Kat (out loud): "Beef Wellington"

Daddy: "Sounds great! Let's go shopping!"

Kat: "opgkpdokfmjgednvb jknb fd..." <-- that's what a dropped jaw sounds like.

So we did. From this we learned 5 things:

1. That Kat is not quite as imaginative as she thinks when it comes to thinking up ridiculous meals...
2. That Daddies have greater power to suprise than Kia cars.
3. That Kia car advertisements are apparently effective.
4. That Kat watches TV sometimes (when at home...)
5. aaand... We learned what a dropped jaw sounds like!

Beef Wellington aka something else... is basically beef sirloin, slathered in pate, shrouded in mushrooms and wrapped in pastry... It can be prepared individually, or in one, great, honking slab like this:

Beef Wellington looking all posh like with not one, not two, but THREE bow ties!

In short, this is NOT the kind of meal any student will EVER make in their own flat... unless something really, really important (like feeding the Royal Family) or a bucket load of money showed up... BUT it's an AMAZING dish, and should definitely be made at some point in everyone's life, especially when one's parents are funding the meal!

This: 

              is what BW looks like on the inside... It's not a brilliant photo, but the centre is beautifully rare! If however, rare is not your thing (tsk, tsk) then the outside parts may well be more to your liking.

I served this for our Easter meal... So I set the table fancy-ily, I'm gonna show it off now!

Setting tables is my current "thing" this ones all pinks, and whites and browns b/c  Easter is a springy thing in the Northern Hemisphere, so all our Easter decorations are spring, rather than autumn based...

Because I'd never made anything like this before, I followed Nigella's recipe nearly to the letter... Things to note though, are:

• I used my Daddy's homemade pate
• I made my own crepes - the crepes are used to soak up any juices from the fillet and, theoretically, stop the pastry from going soggy.
• Make sure your duxelles are really, really dry - or again, you'll have to deal with soggy pastry!
• Mummy and I went to the butcher's so that we could stipulate exactly how much beef we wanted, and it was cheaper than the supermarket anyway!
• I used store bought pastry - b/c I didn't feel like rolling out me own... :|
• Next time I'd maybe cook it on a rack - b/c despite my best efforts the  base of the pastry was still a bit soggy, but Daddy said that was just meat juices from slicing the beef...?
• I served this with roasted potatoes and steamed spinach!

And that's it! :) It's really not that difficult to make - just the beef makes it somewhat expensive. And it's a truly impressive, delicious result that will knock people's socks off for only a little effort!