Beef Wellington

* this receipe is modified from the one from "Christmas with Gordon Ramsay"

Ingredients:
(serves 4-6 paersons)

900g beef fillet (perferably the centre cut with even thickness)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
English mustard, to brush meat

Mushroom Duxelles:
700g chestnut mushrooms or just brown mushrooms, cleaned, and stalks removed
a handful of cooked chestnuts
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
2 thyme sprigs, leaves only

To assemble:
8 slices of parma ham (choose those with less salty flavour)
500g ready-made-all-butter-puff pastry
plain flour, to dust
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten with 1 tbsp water (eggwash)

How to make:

One night before cooking:
1. Wash and dry beef with kitchen towel, season with salt and pepper.

2. Heat olive oil in a frying pan over high hear, quickly sear outside of beef until evenly browned, about 5 mins, turning as necessary.

3. Transfer beef to a plate and brush all over with mustard and allow to cool.

4. For the duxelles,out the cleaned mushrooms, cooked chestnuts and garlic in a food processor, add a little bit of salt and pepper and blend to a fine paste, stopping to scrape down the sides a few times.

5. Heat a fry large frying pan and scarpe the mushroom paste to the pan and add the thyme leaves, mix well and cook over high heat until dry, sitriing occassionally. The duxelles must be sufficiently dry to avoid making the pastry too soggy. Spread out on a tray to cool down.

6. On a clean working top, line a large piece of cling film, then lay the parma ham on top, overlapping each other so as to form a rough rectangule large enough to wrap the whole beef fillet.

7. Using a palette knife or a spatula, spread the mushroom duxelles on top of the parma ham, a thin and even layer does it.

8. Lay the beef fillet along the middle of the mushroom layer. Keeping a tight hold of the cling film from the outside edges, neatly rool the parma ham and the mushroom duxelles over the beef into a tight barrel shape. Twist the end of the cling film to secure. Refridgerate for 15 mins to firm up.

9. On a clean working surface, lightly dust with flour and roll our pastry to a thickness of roughly a HK$5 coin thickness and brush with some of the eggwash.

10. Take beef out of fridge, remove from cling film carefully and place it in the middle of the pastry.

11. Roll the pastry around the beef to envelope it and then presss the edges to seal. Pinch the pastry at the ends to seal and trim off the excess. You can use the excess pastry to make patterns on top of the wrap.  Wrap the log tightly in cling film and chill in fridge.

On the night of cooking:
1. Take the beef out from the fridge 1 hr before cooking and bring it to room temperature.

2. Preheat oven to 190'C. Remove cling film and brush the whole pastry with eggwash and bake it oven for 35 min. If pastry appears to be browning too quickly, lower the temperature slightly.

3. Leave to rest in a warm place for 10-15 min before carving.

Enjoy with your favourite gravy, mash and veggies~~