MY FIRST EVER BEEF WELLINGTON... | SAM THE COOKING GUY

A wise person once said every cook on YouTube's coming-of-age moment is when they tackle the beef Wellington. Well, today's my moment. Either a wise man or a dickhead. There's always that. Look, I'm not scared of a Wellington in general. We've done a meatball. We've... Stop, quiet in the peanut factory. We've done a meatball Wellington. We did a tomahawk ribeye Wellington. And I cut out the letters eat me and put it on there. But Max has been pushing for this one. And yes, maybe I am scared. So scared that I tried it last night. And here, I'll show you the picture. Looks pretty on the plate, but now here's the cutting of it. And there was a problem at the beginning that I think I figured out, but here's what happened when I cut it. I cut through so easy. I don't think there's any meat there. There wasn't. Oh my gosh. Here, here. Really grew. Oh, it's gorgeous. Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's soaking wet. Whatever, it's freaking beautiful. So I think I know what to do now. So I'm going to take you through it. You can do this. It just takes a little bit of time. A little bit of time, a little bit of thinking. And more time in thinking. And then, and some balls. And some guts. And just effing do it, alright? One of the things that makes it a little bit challenging is that unlike cooking a steak on the grill, it's encased in pastry and prosciutto and mushroom and crepe. So you can't see it. We'll use a thermometer to get us there. As we always should. But this is the way to impress anybody. I think a vegan would be impressed by this. Okay, so here's the plan. We're going to break down a fillet to show you what part you need. We'll sear it. We'll set it off to the side. We'll make the mushroom thing. It's called mushroom duxelle. And then once that's done, basically we're just wrapping, rolling, cooking. Maybe a little simplified, but it's going to be fun. Sit back, relax, hit the like button, subscribe, and here we go. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a whole tenderloin. If you went to, say, Costco and bought one, this is how it would come. So look, here's the tail. This is the little tail piece. It thins out here. And this little piece here will come off. Sometimes they call this the head. So what we want in a tenderloin, what we want in a beef wellington is a piece that's exactly the same size so it'll cook at the same time. And that comes from the center here. See, these are the little bits of fat we can just pull off. It'll come from the center here. And this part of the whole fillet is the chateaubriand. This prized middle section, even size. It's perfect. So let's get this. So now look, I'm no meat dad, but I do know that buying this and cutting out the chateaubriand in the center is cheaper than going to the store and just buying a chateaubriand. And then you get the benefit of all these extra pieces. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to cut here like that. Now you see how this guy works? This guy. These two pieces right here, well look, if you go like this, there's a couple beautiful little fillets for you to put on the grill, do whatever you want with. This piece, you could open up, butterfly it, quickly cook it, you could cut it for stir fry, whatever you want. This guy, same thing, you could get a couple fillets out of the middle of this. It's all very usable, but we're coming down to this piece that we want. And this little bit right here is called the chain. And this part you don't really want. So this we can just scoot off like that. And if we come here, we'll give us a little guy like that. Here you go. Perfect. Nice and even. Beautifully sized. Nice and even. You've probably got four people's worth of wellington on this. This one came peeled, which means they've done most of the work in getting the extra fat and the silver skin off. Here's what we want to do with this little guy. This kid, we want to sear. We want to get some beautiful color on it. We only want to color the outside. So screaming hot pan, but let's do this. Using our BFF, we'll season quite aggressively all the way around. The ends, yes, yes, yes. And then roll them like Gordon Ramsay would say. Just mop up that extra seasoning. Let me get a pan. This kid, get some color. Screaming hot pan, couple glugs of good oil, and in we go. I don't want to cook this. I only want to color it. I just want to sear the outside, get some nice golden marks on it, and that'll be it. Because we're going to cook it in the oven. If we cook it too much here, it'll overcook when it's in the oven before the pastry finishes. So we're going maybe a minute a side. And don't forget about the ends. Just briefly, we take it out, and we perform a crucial step. Now we add some mustard to it. Dijon is fairly typical. I like this one, not this one. I like English mustard. It's just got a little spice to it, a little different heat that I'm very fond of. You can also buy this one in powdered form and mix it yourself. I happen to have it like this, so I'm going to use it like this. And then we're just going to brush this all over. And you want to do it while it's warm because that's the time that the filet will really soak in this mustard. Don't forget the ends, and don't forget the side, and don't forget the bottom. When everybody has mustard on, we set this off to the side, carry on with our mushrooms. Our mushrooms begin with, of all things, mushrooms. These need to be chopped. Let me show you how we want to chop them. Normally I pull the stem out, but we're using the stems in this case. I'm going to do this. I'm going to cut them into pieces like that. Then, once they're in smaller pieces, I'm going to chop them into little bits like this. Got it? Just like this. I've got to do all those. The boys will make this happen fast so you don't have to suffer. At this point, I like switching to a big knife. And this is when the Sam the Cooking Guy 10 1⁄2 inch Katsuki comes in perfect. A.K.A. the statement. A.K.A. one big fucking knife. And yes, there's an option for doing this in a processor, but you have to be careful because if you process too much, it'll turn into mush and we don't want mush. I'm quite happy doing it by hand. And when they look like this, we take them away, bring the pan back, and we start cooking. With our same pan back, instill the grease from the filet in there. In goes a couple shallots, finely diced. We'll give those, oh, about a minute. And then we'll add three cloves of garlic. One, two, and three. Little hit more oil. Mix. And when fragrant, in go all of our mushrooms. I use cremini mushrooms. You could have used white button if you wanted. You could have used Max's dreaded shiitake. You could have used portobello. You could have used shimeji. You could have used a combo of everything. The point is get them this size. Get them in the pan. And you know, there's so much moisture in these. The pan looks dry now, but just wait. Because in a couple minutes, it'll be filled with mushroom pee. And you want to wait till all of that water comes out and then is evaporated out of the pan. So, you're probably looking at seven, eight, nine minutes at this point. Take your time. Let it happen. If you look, you see bubbling. That's all the moisture coming out. Moisture is not our friend in this recipe. That's why you gotta stir. Get it all out. Let it evaporate. You can see the moisture's almost gone. We're doing two things at this point. One is a little drizzle of truffle oil. Don't go crazy. But a little goes a long way. Very nice. And we haven't seasoned this. Give it a good pinch of our BFF. Mix around. Give it another couple minutes, just to make sure that all the moisture's gone. And when it is, take it off. Let it cool. It's time for the first roll. Get yourself some Saran. Klingfilm. Saran is a brand name. Klingfilm is generic. We know how much I hate this stuff. And we begin. The first thing down will be crepes that you can make yourself or you can buy. Like I bought these. So what you want is enough crepe to encase your whole fillet. I think that's gonna be enough. I hope that's gonna be enough. The crepes will create a barrier between the fillet, the mushrooms and the puff pastry. The mushrooms still have a little moisture in them. Try to get it all out. It's very difficult. But this way, this will help protect. I tried this recipe last night. I didn't have crepes. And it was good, but it was a little more watery than I wanted. So we're gonna go with this. Now we come in with beautiful thin slices of prosciutto. Set them down. Overlap a little bit. And then one more layer above. Again overlapping. I think I'm in good shape. You never know. This is what makes people crazy about a wellington. Remember our mushrooms? We do what we did with the mushrooms and you get what are called duck cells. Now we want a nice layer all across. My heart's racing just a little bit. Mine too. We're doing it. We're really doing it. That's solidarity, Max. Thank you. Chancey, you too? Same here. Sorry we had to prompt you for that, Chancey. Would have thought you would have just chimed right in. Look, you want more mushrooms than less. You'll see some people say half pound. I'm not a half pound guy. I'm a pound plus guy. I want to make sure that I've got good coverage. Because visually I'm gonna want to see a nice layer of mushroom. And this is the way to get it. That's a little loud. And don't forget, any that you've got left, perfect for eggs tomorrow morning. When you think you're there, it's time for the main ingredient. It's fillet time. And on we go. On we go, buddy. So using your saran as a guide, we're gonna bring them up. So what we're looking for is a tight fit. Snug it back. And then this. And then grab the ends. Get the air out. And do this. And when you've got a nice tight little bundle like that, this kid goes into the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up. You know what this means? Anybody? It's time to roll it! Thank you. God sakes. We start with the saran. Here's our puff pastry. And by the way, you can buy puff pastry fresh these days, as opposed to having to buy it frozen and let it defrost. Roll your guy just a little bit wider. So we'll take our guy out of the encasement that he's been living in. It's heavy. But here's what I need to do first. I have a little egg wash here. This is two beaten egg yolks and about a tablespoon of water. I'm just going to brush this whole thing. Very nice. I think I have enough coverage. Now we get our kid out. We put him on and we start to roll. Now the goal is nice and tight because air will not help this out at all. When you get down here, we're going to come over like that. These ends, if you start losing some stuff, that's okay. Stuff that back in like that. And then bring everybody up to make this little transition nice and relatively neat. You want to seal these ends up fairly nicely so nothing leaks. And the same with your little seam down here. So this I'm going to pinch all the way down. And this seam is going to end up on the bottom so you're not going to notice it. But you still need to do a good job of sealing it. And when you have, and you're happy you think with your work, we're going to roll again like this. And once more twisting them up. This is our last time turning him into a sausage. Take him. He's all nice. Find your seam. Try and set it seam side down. This now will go into the fridge for, oh, 15, 30 minutes. He gets a quick egg wash. Then it goes in the oven. We're back and it's time. So once again, yes, yes once again, he's got to come out of his casement. We get some parchment. Wow, this kid's a beast. He's a frickin' beast. Okay, remember our egg wash? We're back with it. Do a nice job here. I know, Max would say, as opposed to a shitty job? I just meant be mindful. You want to get it all the way around. And this is going to help give it a beautiful golden color. And when you're egg washed up, egg washed up. There's your chance if you want to make some designs or something. And I'm just going to go super simple. Line across the top. One about here. Same about here. And then some of these. There we go. Last thing. Some beautiful chunky salt on top. And this, ladies and gentlemen, will now go into a 425 degree oven. Or 400 convection. We're going to put our thermometer in to about the halfway point. We don't want to play games here. I'm going to pull it when it's about 120 degrees. See you in a bit. We're ready. Are you ready? Because I'm ready. It's been out of the oven 10 minutes and boom! No angels? Well, maybe not yet. This is only the outside. The outside definitely looks pretty. Little turn. I could have just screwed it up doing that. It's beautiful. I love it from the top. Look, I know all the other YouTube guys do that lattice crust thing. Which, by the way, it looks pretty, but they're not hand doing that. It's a tool. I didn't want to be a tool. I mean, use a tool. So that's it. I took it to 120 degrees inside and it took just under an hour. That was at 400 degrees with the convection oven. If I hadn't had the convection, I would have gone 425. Probably would have been similar, but use a thermometer. Because remember, there's no little window here. You don't know what you're dealing with. So I hope I cut this and it's pretty. Unless you got anything else to do, boys. Let's cut this biatch. Here we go. We're going right here. Dead center. And boom! Oh, look at you. Look at you! Wow, it is pretty. I'll tell you that much. Oh, by the way, Yeah? Anybody who makes a beef wellington, but then doesn't show you the cut, is a bitch. Oh yeah, shh. Max, please. Okay. One cut. Okay. I like it. And look. There's the prosciutto. There's the crepe. There's our duxelles. Our puff. And we cut. You want your first bite to have a little bit of all of this. So make sure you got all of it. I love the little steam. Mmm. Crispy. Mushroom duxelle. Delicious. Perfect medium rare fillet. Mmm. I now know the worst part of this whole process is. It's the head game. It's the beating yourself up about whether it's going to be ready. Whether it's going to look good. Whether it'll come together. Whether it'll be medium rare enough or overcooked. Do you trust the thermometer? The last 45 minutes, hour was awful for me. But, look what I've ended up with. And you can too. Take your time. Don't rush it. And enjoy the process. Because really, cooking should be enjoyable. And if it's not enjoyable, you're doing something wrong. You need to change it up. Maybe start with something easier. Maybe this isn't the first thing you make if you're just on a cooking adventure. Thanks for hanging out. We love that you're here. Happy holidays. This is a great thing to make for company.