Downton Abbey Valentine Dinner, Main Course ~ Mini Beef Wellingtons

My Valentine requested his favorite dish for our Downton Abbey themed dinner – Beef Wellington. I have made a full beef Wellington as well as a salmon version on previous occasions, both with delicious success! This time I decided to try mini Wellingtons with pâté, and I think my Valentine was happy with the result. 🙂

Looking into the history of the dish, the origin is a bit cloudy. It may have been around during the Downton era, or it may not have. It may have British origins, or it may actually be American. (Gasp!!) Anyway, the dish is a favorite in our abbey, so we included it in our celebration.

I used a tried and true recipe from Martha Stewart. This mini version is much easier to make than the full beef Wellington. It can also be made ahead of time, which is a lovely feature! It is admittedly a rich dish, but the base of beef tenderloin is a very lean cut of beef. To make it a little healthier, I used less of the pâté than the recipe called for, and I also rolled the pastry thin and cut off the excess, so I didn’t use the entire sheet. Since it was Valentine’s Day, I cut out little hearts for the top of the Wellingtons with some of the extra puff pastry. Just stick them on with a little egg wash. I only made half the recipe, but I will include the original full recipe below:

Mini Beef Wellingtons

From MarthaStewart.com

1 beef tenderloin (5 pounds), trimmed and halved crosswise

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons safflower oil

2 packages (12 ounces each) all-butter puff pastry, such as Dufours

8 ounces mousse pâté, such as D’Artagnan mousse de foie de canard

2 large eggs

Season beef with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a heavy skillet over high heat. Add half of beef; cook, turning, until browned all over, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a cutting board; repeat with second half. Let cool, 40 minutes. Cut each half into 4 equal pieces.

Roll out 1 sheet of puff pastry to a little larger than 16 by 12 inches. Trim edges; cut into four 8-by-6-inch squares. Place one piece of beef, cut-side down, on a pastry square; top with 2 tablespoons mousse, spreading evenly. Lightly beat 1 egg, then brush over edges of pastry, fold up corners to enclose filling, and gently press to seal. Repeat with remaining pastry, beef, and mousse. Arrange Wellingtons, seam-side up, on parchment-lined baking sheet; wrap well in plastic and then foil. Freeze up to 2 weeks. Alternatively, if you are not freezing the Wellingtons for later, wrapping is unnecessary. Just chill for an hour in the refrigerator before baking.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lightly beat remaining egg, then brush over frozen Wellingtons. Divide between 2 parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake about 35 minutes for medium-rare. If your Wellingtons are not frozen, bake for only about 25 minutes. The internal temperature of medium-rare beef is between 130-135 degrees.

Remove Wellingtons from baking sheet and let rest 10 minutes before serving with mushrooms.

Serve with sautéed mushrooms (I made this recipe, which is the recommended pairing on MarthaStewart.com), and a salad.

Next course, Battenberg cake!