How to cook perfect beef wellington

The British may not have the kind of culinary heritage that legends are made of, but we're not averse to the odd bit of kitchen myth-making. I'd always, reasonably enough, assumed that beef wellington was a dish with a long and honourable history – perhaps created in honour of the famous Duke's epic victory on that Belgian battlefield. After all, the man deserves a little more than an ABBA song and a mainline station for his trouble. (Waterloo doesn't even make it on to the Monopoly board for goodness sake.)

The dish certainly has the ring of the epic feasts of the period – a butter-soft, ruinously pricey cut of beef smothered in a rich, potentially even truffled mushroom mixture, spiked with madeira wine and topped, in its most glorious incarnation, with a decadent slab of foie gras. The Iron Duke, according to the guardians of his memory, was a man fond of all these ingredients – frankly it's a wonder he found a horse to carry him into battle in the first place.

However, when I turn to my recipe books for ideas, I'm surprised to find myself coming up empty-handed again and again, even under its French guise boeuf en croute (always sore losers, the French). According to a food history website, the name is almost certainly a 20th century invention, possibly because (with authentic period eyesight), the long stretch of shiny brown pastry bears a passing resemblance to a wellington boot.

The concept of cooking a piece of meat in a pastry crust to keep it moist is much older however – and whatever the origins of the dish, this is one dinner party classic that deserves a revival. Not only does it look and taste spectacular, but it's surprisingly simple, and can be prepared ahead of time, ready to eat on the battlefield of festive fun.

Pastry

Starting on the outside and working in, I'm surprised to find that, although I've always assumed puff pastry a non-negotiable aspect of a wellington, there are dissenters – possibly motivated by a desire to further Anglicise the boeuf en croute. Most notably, Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham, who use a "quick flaky pastry" in the Prawn Cocktail Years while conceding that puff is the more traditional choice. (Intriguingly they also suggest brioche dough is a possibility, but despite following a promising lead for a Julia Child recipe using the very same, I'm unable to find it in either volume of Mastering the Art of French Cookery – any leads would be most welcome.)

Their flaky pastry is easy enough to make, and the result (buttery, damp with meat juices and meltingly soft, almost like a steak pudding rather than a pie) is popular with my wellington panel, but compared to the puff used by Delia Smith, Gordon Ramsay and James Martin, patriotically heavy. We Britons already have our glorious meat pies: let this be something a little more delicate.

Madalene Bonvini-Hamel of the British Larder, meanwhile, advocates a rough puff, because "only the very best ingredients will do for this recipe" – implying (and rightly so in my opinion) that very few home cooks will have the patience or the chilliness of hand to do justice to a proper puff.

I've made enough sausage rolls in my time that rough puff, with all its meticulous folding and chilling, holds little fear for me, but honestly, I think this is one of those times that only the bouffant lightness of proper puff will cut the mustard. You can make your own – indeed, for a special occasion, you should give it a go – but with enough other things to think about, particularly at this time of year, I'd be the first to advocate cheating, and using one of the excellent ready-made all-butter puffs that have made life so much easier for the pragmatic cook.

The juices

Simon and Lindsey observe in the preface to their beef wellington recipe that "the whole point of cooking meat in pastry is to keep in the juices ... but if the pastry is good and thin, buttery and rich, nothing is nicer than a meat-soaked crust". I'm largely with them – after all, using puff pastry should ensure the top is still ambitiously lofty, while the base is a melting mass of beefy, buttery decadence – but, as a seasoned MasterChef viewer, I know how much a soggy bottom displeases the highest culinary power in the land (Michel Roux Jr) and I'm nothing if not aspirational. Pancakes, according to classical lore, will soak up the meat juices, leaving the pastry unscathed.

Although, outside MasterChef HQ at least, the concept seems to have fallen from fashion recently, James Martin is still a devotee, prompting me to make four savoury crepes to wrap my beef and mushroom mixture in before I can even begin thinking pastry.

Not only are the cooled pancakes more difficult to roll than I'd anticipated, causing my sous chef Richard to pause and watch in horrified fascination before I shoo him out of the kitchen, but the finished result is decidedly stodgy. "I just had a chunk of pancake," my flatmate, on her third sample of wellington of the evening, declares, "and now I feel a bit sick." They're not crisp like the pastry (which seems just as moist on the bottom as any of the other recipes), or meaty like the beef – in fact, they're just an extra layer of carb-laden work. Save that room for more meat.

Extra meat

You'll need the extra room too – some recipes, not content with an enormous hunk of beef, have to pop some pork in too. Gordon wraps the fillet in pancetta, while James Martin opts for Parma ham. Ham, being leaner and slightly thinner, works better I think, but it's still an unnecessary distraction, given it doesn't seem to do anything in the way of providing a protective seal for the meat juices, as I assume it's intended to. Salty and stridently savoury, it steals the thunder from the more delicately flavoured beef.

Even worse, in my panel's opinion, is James Martin's inclusion of chicken liver pâté – often substituted with pâté de foie gras in yet richer (in every sense) recipes. Liver pâté is not a shy and retiring flavour, and here it reduces the beef to a very expensive vehicle, rather like a protein-enhanced slab of toast. If you shell out for fillet, don't ruin it with additions that are going to bully it into the background.

The mushrooms

Mushrooms, along with fillet, are the only aspects of the wellington that will brook no debate. If it doesn't contain fungi, it's a fake. But which fungi? Gordon Ramsay suggests chestnut mushrooms, Simon and Lindsey, and James Martin flat black mushrooms, Delia a mixture of dried porcini, soaked before use, and chestnut, and Madelene a veritable melange of oyster, chestnut, shitake and girolles. I'm unable to lay my hands on any fresh girolles at this time of year, but I do find some dried versions that I rehydrate accordingly. Madelene's fungi feast gets the thumbs up from my testers, who think that the variety of textures and flavours add interest, and Anna likes the meaty taste of the dried porcini in Delia's duxelles.

Almost more important that the variety, however, is how the mushrooms are prepared. Both Gordon and the Prawn Cocktail Years pair opt for a very simple duxelles, made by frying finely chopped mushrooms in butter and oil until softened, and then cooking them with white wine and a sprig of thyme until reduced to a thick paste. It packs a surprising flavour punch – I quite like the rougher texture of Gordon's mixture, as opposed to Simon and Lindsay's puréed version.

Madelene stirs double cream and a splash of truffle oil into her finished mushroom mixture. Although the oil is judged overpowering, and, like the pâté, has a whiff of gilding the lily about it, the cream gets a mixed reception – I think it detracts from the earthy flavour of the mushrooms, but Jot likes the richness of it.

Like Simon and Lindsey, she uses a chopped shallot in her duxelle, which gives a pleasant sweetness – Delia opts for an onion instead, which provokes a storm of protest amongst the panel. "Is this a pasty?" Anna asks. "It's nice," Jot concedes, "in the same way as a steak and onion pie is nice. But it's not as luxurious as the others, where you could taste the mushrooms and the beef – here it's just onion." After reducing for half an hour on the hob to concentrate the flavours, I'm not really surprised.

Gordon, Simon and Lindsey and the British Larder all use white wine in their duxelles, reducing it down to almost nothing, but giving it a tangy, slightly boozy flavour missing in James Martin's basic duxelles, or Delia's onion feast.

The fat

Delia sears her fillet in dripping, Gordon, James Simon and Lindsey in oil, and Madelene in oil and butter. Oil seems the best choice here – dripping is unnecessarily rustic in flavour, and there's enough richness in the rest of the dish to render the butter de trop.

The extras

Delia rubs a decadent drop of brandy into her beef, but I can't taste it in the finished version, so I decide to include a drop in the duxelles instead. In fact, after reading so much about the Duke's apocryphal tastes, I try it with madeira instead – which is even better. Richer and rounder, and much more 19th century.
Madelene uses a layer of blanched spinach in her wellington, which is a nice idea – "carbohydrate, protein, sauce and vegetable all in one" as she says – and which wins Richard's heart; "it just looks so pretty" he says dreamily. He's right, and the iron flavour of the vegetable works well with the beef, but I prefer a more generous portion of greens on the side. The poppy seeds on the top of her wellington are lovely though – adding a little more crunch, and a decorative flourish to what is, before the big reveal, a big hunk of pastry.

Sauce wise, you could serve a simple beef and red wine sauce, but I like Delia's suggestion of making a sauce with the leftover duxelles – if you serve the wellington with a portion of spinach, it will bring everything together beautifully. A great one for a fancy winter dinner party or even, dare I say it, Christmas dinner?

Perfect beef wellington

Serves 4

10g dried porcini mushrooms
50 butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
300g mixed mushrooms (eg chestnut, oyster, shitaake, flat black) roughly chopped or torn
1 sprig of thyme, leaves picked
200ml madeira
2 tbsp double cream
250g all-butter puff pastry
1 tbsp vegetable oil
500g beef fillet
1 egg, beaten, to glaze
1 tbsp poppy seeds

1. Preheat the oven, and a baking sheet, to 200C. Soak the porcini in 150ml boiling water for 20 minutes, then squeeze out and finely chop, reserving the soaking water. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat and cook the shallots until pale golden, then add the mixed mushrooms, porcini and thyme and cook until softened. Pour in 150ml madeira, season, turn up the heat and cook until the wine has evaporated. Take off the heat, and scoop ¾ of the mixture into a bowl. Mix in the double cream, taste for seasoning, and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a pan over a high heat and, when smoking, add the fillet and sear briefly on all sides until crusted. Season well and allow to cool. Don't wash the pan yet - you'll need it for making the sauce.

3. Roll out the pastry to a rectangle about 25cm x 30cm and 3mm thick. Brush all over with egg, and then spread with the cream duxelle mixture. Put the beef at one end and carefully roll up, positioning it seam-side down, and then trim the edges and tuck in to seal the parcel, using the tines of a fork to press the edges together. Paint with egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds.

4. Put on to the hot baking sheet and cook for 30 minutes until golden, then set aside to rest for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, make the sauce. Deglaze the beef pan with the remaining madeira and then add the rest of the mushrooms and the porcini soaking liquid and allow to reduce slightly. Taste, season, and serve with the beef wellington.

Does beef wellington deserve a revival, or does it rest on the laurels of its luxurious ingredients? Is it the ultimate show-off beef dish, and what else do you like to cook en croute, or, in plain English, in a pastry crust?