Beef Wellington Question

cortguitarman

Made beef Wellington for mtoher's day today. This was the second time I've made it and it tasted awesome. My problem is that the puffed pastry got soggy. The first one at Christmas had the same issues. I cooked the mushrooms longer this time and thought for sure that I got the moisture out of them. Cooked them for almost an hour. Any thoughts?

SGH

@cortguitarman‌
I'm not sure of the procedure or order of how you cooked yours but I will offer what I can. The thing that I found that helps the most is to cook the meat first. Depending on how done you want the meat at serving stop the cooking 15 degrees before because it will cook further during the cooking of the pastry. I prefer rare so I cook the meat to around 105 internal then pull and wrap with the pastry and then back on the cooker at 450 to cook the pastry until it is golden brown. The precooking of the meat reduces the amount of rendering from the meat. It's this rendering that usually causes the pastry to be soggy. Other things can cause soggyness as well but usually the meat renderings are the culprit. This has worked well for me. Again just be sure to stop the meat about 15 degrees short of your target as it will cook some more during the cooking of the pastry and this should solve your issue. This tip was given to me by my awesome wife. I hope this helps my friend.

Austin Egghead

One of Thomas Keller's recipe recommends that you brown the meat on all sides and place in the fridge over nite. I am sure that is to reduce the meat juices causing a soggy bottom crust. We have not tried that, but we do let the meat rest about a hour before wrapping. Also we cook our Welli on a cooling rack to get even heat all the way around. The rack dimples the bottom of the dough, not pretty, but who looks at the bottom.

SGH

@Austin Egghead‌
I presumed that he used a cooling rack and that might have been wrong on my part. Glad you pointed it out as you are correct that a rack is almost a must to achieve uniform results. Never tried the fridge overnight thing but it sounds interesting and I'm going to give it a try. Thanks for sharing my friend.

cortguitarman

Thanks. I didn't use a cooling rack. I cooked it using my half moon grid the. Put the half moon stone on top of the grid. The Wellington went on rope of the half moon stone. I did sear all sides of the meat and let it rest for about 30 minutes before wrapping. I think the next time I'll try cooking right on the grid. I'll also try pre cooking the meet the day before.

SenecaTheYounger

I have never done a Beef Wellington, but I understand it contains a duxelle.

My wife made a puff pastry appetizer which I would cook on the egg.  It was a duxelles in a folded pastry with a little herbed goat cheese dollop.

She would cook that duxelles down until it looked like it was almost crumbly.  It needs to be very dry or it will exude water. 

Tenderloin doesn't render anything (in terms of fat), and the temperature it is cooked to (125-130) means very little water or juices will come from it.

It's the mushrooms.  Cook them until you think they have given up their water.  And then cook them longer.

SmokeyPitt

I have not done this recipe yet, but I found this:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/12/the-food-lab-beef-wellington-ultimate.html

...he recommends using Fillo (Phyllo) dough as as moisture barrier (in addition to the puff pastry). 

SenecaTheYounger

Phyllo dough is an odd rercommendation.  Puff pastry has fat in many hundreds of interlayers.  Fat is a barrier to water, where Phyllo dough is merely exceptionally thin layers of dough itself, without fat.

Someone mentioned searing.  But searing doesn't seal in any juices, it causes them.  But the meat should be seared, for flavor.  And it should be refrigerated after searing anyway, if I understand it correctly.  The searing is for flavor.  It should not cause any excess water to come from the meat when slow roasted though.

I may need to try this.  I just don't have any guests in the near future who could eat this thing with me.

Little Steven

cortguitarman said:

Made beef Wellington for mtoher's day today. This was the second time I've made it and it tasted awesome. My problem is that the puffed pastry got soggy. The first one at Christmas had the same issues. I cooked the mushrooms longer this time and thought for sure that I got the moisture out of them. Cooked them for almost an hour. Any thoughts?

Did you use foie gras or pate?

cortguitarman

@Little Steven‌ neither. I just used duxelles. @SenecaTheYounger‌ it was close to crumbly but not yet. I guess I needed to keep it going.

HDumptyEsq

After you apply the duxelle (very dry) to a mustard glaze over the tenderloin, wrap the whole thing in overlapping thinly sliced ham or prosciuto. It seems to hold back the moisture until serving time. Tyler Florence from the Food Network has a great recipe.

Little Steven

HDumptyEsq said:

After you apply the duxelle (very dry) to a mustard glaze over the tenderloin, wrap the whole thing in overlapping thinly sliced ham or prosciuto. It seems to hold back the moisture until serving time. Tyler Florence from the Food Network has a great recipe.

Or bresaola

HDumptyEsq

Nothing worse than a soggy bottom!!

hondabbq

I have made thousands of Wellingtons in my career.

This issue is easy to resolve. As noted above make sure your duxelle is "dry", not bone dry but definitely not wet either. Once that part is out of the way the issue here is the temperature it is cooked at.

Think of it this way. Have you ever cooked stir fry or stew beef and put it a pan that was not hot enough? the moisture will seep out and it will look like its boiling in its own juices. This is the same issue.

 You have to get the oven (egg) very hot 400F + and not let it drop too much, same as overloading an oven too much, it will take too long for your oven (egg) to recuperate the initial heat, thus dropping your temp creating a less intense heat and letting the meat seep out juices.

Little Steven

You can also make a big crepe to wrap the beef, duxelles and foie gras in before wrapping in the puff pastry. The crepe absorbs extra juices. BTW did you flambe the duxelles with brandy?

cortguitarman

No flambé. That sounds good though. Duxelles had mushrooms, butter, shallots, parsley, and thyme. After cooking the mushrooms I mixed it with an egg and cream cheese and let it cool off.
Interesting tip on the temp. The Big Green Egg cookbook recipe is the one I used. In that recipe it told me to put the stone on the egg cold. I'm wondering if I should have heated the stone with the egg. That would have not changed the temp so much. Dome temp was 425 but took a while to recoup after the stone.

hondabbq

Adding the egg and cream cheese will also create moisture inside the pastry. The cold stone I would think is your issue. That would suck up a lot of heat to get hot taking temp away from the egg. As I said you want the oven(egg) to recuperate the heat ASAP to keep the pastry from becoming soggy. Another tip is nit to have too much pastry on the bottom of the Wellington. I make my discs and thin the edges out so the pastry is thinner on the edges as compared to the rest. Too many bad welling tons come out of a kitchen with raw or not fully cooked dough on the bottom due to the pastry being overlapped and the same thickness as the rest of the dough.

cortguitarman

Thanks for the tips. I bought the puffed pastry. I may have had too much dough on the bottom. I rolled it out but could've gone thinner. I will get this right. Unfortunately this isn't a cook that can be done frequently due to the cost.

Little Steven

cortguitarman said:

Thanks for the tips. I bought the puffed pastry. I may have had too much dough on the bottom. I rolled it out but could've gone thinner. I will get this right. Unfortunately this isn't a cook that can be done frequently due to the cost.

I  chicken willies quite often using boneless skinless breasts. My daughter's favourite.

cortguitarman

Good tip @Little Steven‌