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The Beefcake

I never really liked beef Wellington. To be fair, I’ve only really tasted it in those retro, doily-lined pink English tea rooms. So they probably overcooked their meat on purpose, so that I’d order more of their second flush B.O.P. Darjeeling.

But why would we even want to encrust the most expensive cut of beef in puff pastry? It’s just a soggy and overcooked mess waiting to happen. Historically, one would cook the tenderloin wrapped in cheaper cuts of meat to prevent it from charring. But we have better control over how we apply heat, and this led to the slightly more modern and much improved (if not still retro) version that Gordon Ramsay explains on his show, using only one-word sentences. But we should still be able to do better. We blind-bake our pie crusts; shouldn’t we be doing the same to our Wellington’s crust?

Suppose that we do blind-bake our crust. It might be a little more crusty, but it’s hardly compelling enough to justify its place around a perfectly fine piece of tenderloin. Discussing it with a friend (who is, thankfully, full of crazy ideas) led me to this abomination. Beef(cake) Wellington. All the elements are the same. It’s simply how we put them together.

First step is to make the fondant, since we need to mature the base. There’s just one, very obvious problem here: fondant is sweet, and steak is not. To counter this, we’ll take a page from savory sorbet recipes and use smaller, less sweet sugars and up the salt content. We’ll need:

Since the marshmallow is destined to fondant anyway, there is really no point in making it properly. Bloom the gelatin in the mustard. Meanwhile, cook the isomalt with the water to 125C and add the bloomed gelatin. Cool to 58C and stir in the egg white. Transfer to a cream whipper and charge with two cartridges, shaking well after each one. Cool to room temperature.

Combine the glycerol monostearic with the duck fat and heat to 60C to dissolve. This will thicken the fat slightly, and make the fondant more elastic. Chill the fat. Discharge the measure of marshmallow into a workbowl and add the water, glucose, and corn starch. Knead into a cohesive mass, then chill.
Typically, buttercream is used to offset the texture of fondant and to give it something to adhere to. But if we want to serve it warm, we’ll have to deal with the butter, which melts. Instead, we’re going to create a very thick bechamel.

Dice the mushrooms and sauté until slightly browned. Add the sauce béchamel and cook until the mushrooms are very soft. Transfer to a workbowl and blend with an immersion blender until completely smooth. Stream in the methyl cellulose until the sauce has the texture of buttercream.
It’s common to add pâté to beef Wellington to give it richness. With the duxelle buttercream, I don’t think this is necessary. Moreover, pâté does not like being baked. Instead, I wanted to try a warm foie gras “coulis”.

Clean the foie by removing large veins. Soak the foie in milk overnight to draw out remaining blood. Dry the foie, then apply the salt and curing salt and cure for 6-12 hours. Remove excess salt and shape into a torchon using plastic wrap. Vacuum-seal the torchon and cook sous-vide at 56C. cooking times will vary depending on your torchon’s thickness, so remove it once the torchon reaches a core temperature of 54C. Chill in an ice bath.

Strain the torchon through a fine-mesh sieve to remove any remaining veins. Heat the cream with the soy lecithin and blend to disperse. This will ensure that the fat of the foie does not separate from the sauce. Chill the cream base, then blend in the strained strained foie gras.

Puff pastry is typical for beef Wellington, but it gives too much volume to the cake, since nothing is preventing it from rising. By making our own laminated pastry, we can control the number of layers as well as the fat used. It’s baked between two silpats to further limit volume and to make sure it rises evenly.

Combine the butter and duck fat, then chill thoroughly. Mix half into the flour, and add water to bring the pastry together into a very dry dough. Season with salt. Roll out the dough, then apply a thin layer of fat. Fold the dough over and roll out again, repeating until all the fat is used up. Roll to 3mm thickness, then cut into 6cm disks. Bake between two silpats in a 370F oven until golden. Cover each disk with proscitto on one side.

The last, and most important element is the steak. Beef tenderloin is traditionally used since it’s so tender. We have a lot more control over the cooking process, though, and hanger steak has a lot more flavor.

Clean the steak by removing the central vein. Cut a 6cm disk from the steak and cure with salt for 4 hours. Rinse the cure and pat completely dry. Wrap in paper towel, changing the paper towel until it no longer soaks up any water from the meat. Vacuum seal with the butter, garlic, and thyme, and cook en sous-vide at 49.5C for 35 minutes. Remove the meat from the bag and pat dry. Apply a thin coat of glucose, then sear to form a crust.

Bring the foie gras coulis to room temperature. Reheat the buttercream in a small pan. Place the steak between both disks of pastry, prosciutto-side facing the steak. Apply the buttercream to the steak and crust in a thin layer. Work quickly so that the steak does not cool down. On an oiled surface, roll out the mustard fondant to 3mm. Holding the cake in one hand, place the fondant over it allowing the excess to fall over the edges. Trim the excess.

On a warm plate, draw a circle of foie coulis. Place the beefcake in the center. Shape the remaining prosciutto into a quenelle, and place over the cake. Garnish with microherbs.

© jonathan khouzam 2008/2009