Beef, spinach and mushroom duxelle 'en croute'
Beef
Beef, spinach and mushroom duxelle 'en croute'
Unlike standard Beef Wellingtons, these do need to be cooked right through so warming them up before wrapping in pastry will get better results. They can be wrapped in clingfilm and put in a plastic bag in a pan of hand-hot water for half an hour.
Ingredients
main
- 4 or 6 x 100g frying steaks
for the duxelle
- 50g butter
- 4 shallots, finely chopped
- 500g mushrooms (include a few dried porcini if feeling flush), chopped
- 150ml white wine
- 400g spinach, washed and roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp double cream
for the pastry
- 300g plain flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 255g almost frozen butter
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- about 60ml chilled red wine
- ½ tsp fresh thyme leaves
- 1 egg, beaten with a little water for glazing
Method
To make the duxelles
-
Step 1
, melt the butter and cook the shallots until they begin to colour. Add the mushrooms and cook until softened. Add the wine and spinach and continue to cook until the spinach is cooked and incorporated into the mushroom mix and the wine has evaporated. Mix in the cream and allow to cool.
-
Step 2
Meanwhile
make the pastry
-
Step 1
. Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, and grate in the hard butter. Coating the 'to be grated' surface of the butter block with flour will help keep the butter separate once it is mixed into the flour; this will ultimately make a better pastry. Stir them together with a knife, so the butter is well-coated with flour, and resembles a rough crumble mixture.
-
Step 2
Add the mustard and pour in enough chilled wine to turn the mixture into a dough that comes away cleanly from the bowl. Don't go overboard with the liquid – it shouldn't be sticky – and bring together into a ball. Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for half an hour.
-
Step 3
Lay the frying steaks out on a chopping board, cover with clingfilm or a plastic bag and gently tap out with a rolling pin. Try to keep them as rectangular as possible – you should be able to stretch them to a size of about 16x12cm.
-
Step 4
Preheat oven to 220°C/Gas Mark 7. Spread a heaped tablespoon of the mushroom mixture on each one and roll into a sausage. Wrap each one in clingfilm, place all six in a plastic bag and place in a large pan of hand hot (around 50°C) water. Leave for about 20 minutes.
-
Step 5
Roll the pastry into a large sheet (or two smaller ones) and cut into four or six rectangles large enough to wrap the beef rolls in. Unwrap the warmed beef and encase in pastry. Squeeze the ends together. Place in a baking tray, brush with the beaten egg and bake for half an hour until golden.
