Holiday Traditions....
Better late than never I guess! I was putting together a few pictures for this article and It took a few days from start to finish before I could write. I’m sure most of you didn’t miss my newsletter on Sunday. Maybe some of you did but here it is on Tuesday!
I was thinking about Christmas and holiday traditions. Mainly with food, but I guess it could be anything. Do you have any specific traditions that you and your family, spouse or significant other might do each and every year? Specific gift giving traditions, certain things you do? Maybe a midnight mass, maybe a gathering of friends, maybe nothing. What about food? Do you have anything that you like to make every year? A go to that “WOWS” everyone? Or maybe something that has been passed down from generations in your family?
I don’t really have anything on my end. I started working all the major holidays when I was in my early teens in professional kitchens, so aside from big family get togethers as a young boy I don’t really have anything. I just like a hike, gym and maybe a hot tea and some elk over a hot fire made of last year’s Christmas tree. If I have the day off that is a true story.
However, another thing I have been doing the last few years is doing a joint tradition with Tangen Draw and La Cuisine and myself making smaller Grass Fed, Grass Finished Beef and or Bison Wellingtons. We don’t offer a large amount. Just a few so we can sell out and give people that gift of food raised properly, wild ingredients where applicable and sold at a store that has all of the items to make it happen and look fantastic. I took some pictures of the wrapping process so that what we can go over in this letter.
You start with your ingredients. It’s normally a tenderloin of beef but you can use any game animal although they are smaller most of the time. I prefer the bison myself. Next you have a good brand of Dijon mustard, mushroom duxelles, truffles, foie gras, prosciutto and puff pastry. This one does not have foie gras. I myself am a huge fan of foie gras and have never had any issues with it except for the people that tell me i’m inhumane for using it. If you feel that way, that is your opinion but don’t tell me i’m inhumane for using it. To me, you are the one missing out and we can leave it at that.
I sous vide my tenderloins when I do this. The reason is most people burn the puff pastry and have an undercooked tenderloin. This is not very appetizing on such a wonderful dish. So, we have them sous vide for 3 hours at 120 degrees. They are chilled and then removed from the bag and placed on towels to dry. This is the second part people get wrong. They don’t dry any of the ingredients. When you roll the meat and duxelles wet they ruin your puff pastry and it becomes extremely soggy. This is where the time comes in to play. Let your meat dry overnight.
Next up is the duxelles. Most people use button mushroom or maybe a cremini. They add garlic, shallot, thyme and sweat together in butter. Once they soften and turn translucent you can add sherry, madeira, cognac or armagnac. Reduce it almost completely and season with salt and pepper and a splash of cream. Transfer it to a food processor and pulse and place on a dry towel and let stand for two nights. This is better made before you do the beef obviously. You can also mince everything by hand or run everything through a meat grinder if you don’t have a food processor or just prefer another way. For mine I use morels and oyster mushrooms I pick in spring, a few porcini I pick in the fall, shiitake and perigord truffles. I normally use Armagnac as my preferred alcohol in this dish.
Once everything has dried you take the prosciutto and lay it out on plastic wrap. Spread a good amount of the duxelles on the prosciutto and make and even layer. With a brush, put a layer of dijon on all sides making sure it’s even. Place on one side on the prosciutto and roll into a cylinder. Roll the cylinder tight and then place in your refrigerator for 24 hrs to set
After 24 hrs unwrap the cylinder and set to the side on a paper towel. Next, grab two sheets of puff pastry and roll one out. You want to have more dough than you need in order to get a proper wrap. Once you reach the desired thickness roll the tenderloin in a cylinder and fold over the edges. I like to water wash at this step but you can egg wash the edges if you prefer. Next I will roll the other sheet and cut with a lattice cutter to get a nice look to the finished product. You can water wash or egg wash this step as well.
Once this part is finished you can heat your oven to 425 and egg wash the entire the Wellington. Place in the oven and brown the puff pastry. Let rest for about 15 to 20 min. Slice and serve. Remember if you are doing a raw tenderloin if you pull it at 130 and rest it your Wellington will be way overcooked. always account for carry over. This one is already sous vide med rare so you just have to brown the outside nicely and pull it. The inside will be perfect every time!
Scott (The Traveling Ungulate)