Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington
Beef Wellington, sliced open
Place of origin England
Main ingredients fillet steak, pâté, puff pastry
A whole Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington is a preparation of fillet steak coated with pâté (often pâté de foie gras) and duxelles, which is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. Some recipes include wrapping the coated meat in a crêpe to retain the moisture and prevent it from making the pastry soggy.

A whole tenderloin may be wrapped and baked, and then sliced for serving, or the tenderloin may be sliced into individual portions prior to wrapping and baking. Many spices may be added to enhance the flavour; some examples are allspice and ginger.

Naming

Origin

The origin of the name is unclear, with no definite connection to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.[1]

Leah Hyslop, writing in The Daily Telegraph, observes that by the time Wellington became famous, meat baked in pastry was a well-established part of English cuisine, 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".[2] However, she cautions, there are no 19th-century recipes for the dish. There is a mention of "fillet of beef, a la Wellington" in the Los Angeles Times of 1903. 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.[3] The first occurrence of the dish recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary 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.[2]

Clarissa Dickson Wright argues that "This dish has nothing to do with that splendid hero, the Duke of Wellington; it was invented for a civic reception in Wellington, New Zealand, but it is a splendid addition to any party."[4]

Similarly named dishes

Similar dishes of different types of protein baked in pastry include sausage and salmon. Various vegetarian mushroom Wellington recipes also exist.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Food Timeline
  2. 1 2 Hyslop, Leah (21 August 2013). "Potted histories: Beef Wellington". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Small, Sidney Herschel (9 January 1930). "Custom Built". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 27. Retrieved 3 August 2018 – via ProQuest Historical Newspapers. (Subscription required (help)).
  4. ↑ Dickson Wright, Clarissa, and Scott, Johnny. Sunday Roast. Kyle Cathie Limited, 2006, p. 26.
  5. ↑ "Classic Beef Wellington". Tiny New York Kitchen. Retrieved 14 May 2015.


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