
Beef Wellington is a baked steak dish of
English origin, made out of
fillet steak and
duxelles wrapped in
shortcrust pastry
Shortcrust is a type of pastry often used for the base of a tart, quiche, pie, or (in the British English sense) flan. Shortcrust pastry can be used to make both sweet and savory pies such as apple pie, quiche, lemon meringue or chicken pie. ...
. Some recipes include wrapping the contents in
prosciutto
Prosciutto ( ; ), also known as ''prosciutto crudo'', is an uncooked, unsmoked, and dry-cured ham. It is usually served thinly sliced.
Several regions in Italy have their own variations of ''prosciutto crudo'', each with degrees of protected ...
, or dry-cured ham, which helps retain moisture while preventing the pastry from becoming soggy; use of
puff pastry
Puff pastry, also known as , is a light, flaky pastry, its base dough () composed of wheat flour and water. Butter or other solid fat () is then layered into the dough. The dough is repeatedly rolled and folded, rested, re-rolled and folded, encas ...
; and/or coating the beef in
mustard. Classical recipes may include
pâté
Pâté ( , , ) is a forcemeat. Originally, the dish was cooked in a pastry case; in more recent times it is more usually cooked without pastry in a terrine. Various ingredients are used, which may include meat from pork, poultry, fish or bee ...
.
A whole
tenderloin may be wrapped and baked, and then sliced for serving, or the tenderloin may be sliced into individual portions before wrapping and baking.
Naming
While historians generally believe that the dish is named after
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field marshal (United Kingdom), Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (; 1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was a British Army officer and statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures in Britain during t ...
, the precise origin of the name is unclear and no definite connection between the dish and the duke has been found.
Leah Hyslop, writing in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'', observed that by the time Wellington became famous, meat baked in pastry was a well-established part of
English cuisine
English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but is also very similar to wider British cuisine, partly historically and partly due to the import of i ...
, and that the dish's similarity to the French ''filet de bœuf en croûte'' (fillet of beef in pastry) might imply that "beef Wellington" was a "timely patriotic rebranding of a trendy continental dish".
However, she cautioned, there are no 19th-century recipes for the dish. There is a mention of "fillet of beef, à la Wellington" in the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' of 1903, and an 1899 reference in a menu from the
Hamburg-America line.
In the Polish classic cookbook, finished in 1909 and published for the first time in 1910, by Maria Ochorowicz-Monatowa (1866-1925), ''Uniwersalna książka kucharska'' ("The Universal Cooking Book"), there is a recipe for "Polędwica wołowa à la Wellington" (beef fillet ''à la'' Wellington). The recipe does not differ from the dish later known under this name. It is a beef filet enveloped together with duxelles in puff pastry, baked, and served with a truffle or
Madeira sauce. The author, who mastered her cooking skills both in Paris and Vienna at the end of the 19th century, claimed that she had received this recipe from the cook of the imperial court in Vienna. She also included "filet à la Wellington" in the menus proposed for the "exquisite dinners".
In ''
Le Répertoire de la Cuisine'' a professional reference cookbook published by Théodore Gringoire and Louis Saulnier in 1914, there is mentioned a garnish "Wellington" to beef, described as: "''Fillet browned in butter and in the oven, coated in poultry stuffing with dry duxelles added, placed in rolled-out puff pastry. Cooked in the oven. Garnished with peeled tomatoes, lettuce, Pommes château''".
An installment of a serialized story entitled "Custom Built" by Sidney Herschel Small in 1930 had two of its characters in a restaurant in Los Angeles that had "beef Wellington" on its menu. The first occurrence of the dish recorded in the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' is a quotation from a 1939 New York food guide with "Tenderloin of Beef Wellington" which is cooked, left to cool, and rolled in a pie crust.
[
]
Variations
In the Food Network
Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery, who manages and operates it as a division of the Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. Networks Group. The channel airs both televi ...
show '' Good Eats'', Alton Brown discusses a variant using the cheaper pork tenderloin instead of beef. A common vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...
variation of the dish, known as "beet Wellington", replaces the beef with beetroot
The beetroot (British English) or beet (North American English) is the taproot portion of a ''Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''vulgaris'' plant in the Conditiva Group. The plant is a root vegetable also known as the table beet, garden beet, dinner bee ...
and has been featured on food competition shows such as ''MasterChef Australia
''MasterChef Australia'' is an Australian competitive cooking reality show based on the original British ''MasterChef (British TV series), MasterChef''. It is produced by Endemol Shine Australia and screens on Network 10.
Restaurateur and ch ...
''.
See also
* Shooter's sandwich
* List of beef dishes
* List of steak dishes
This is a list of steak dishes. Steak is generally a cut of beef sliced perpendicular to the muscle fibers, or of fish cut perpendicular to the spine. Meat steaks are usually grilled, pan-fried, or broiled, while fish steaks may also be bak ...
References
{{English cuisine
Baked foods
British cuisine
British pork dishes
British beef dishes
British-Australian culture
British-New Zealand culture
British-Canadian culture
British-South African culture
Canadian cuisine
Australian cuisine
New Zealand cuisine
South African cuisine
Saint Helenian cuisine
Dinner
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