How NYC’s Best Beef Wellington is Made

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I am TJ Hoy.

I'm the CDC here at Gage & Tollner,

and today I'm gonna show you

how I make our perfect Beef Wellington.

Gage & Tollner is a historic restaurant

in the heart of downtown Brooklyn.

Beef Wellington is one of those dishes

that are really special to us.

It's a holiday tradition,

but we celebrate it all year round.

Our perfect Beef Wellington,

it's beautiful layers of pate brisee,

house cured bacon, mushroom duxelless,

creamed Swiss chard, mustard,

and a nice primed filet mignon

all wrapped into this beautiful dough.

Each component you gotta make separately,

it's really labor of love.

It was created for the kings and the dukes.

It may seem pretty intimidating to make,

but really what it boils down to

is you're making a really big delicious hot pocket.

To kick it off,

we're gonna start with the beef.

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The beef that we're using today

is a 10 ounce cut of prime filet mignon,

nicely marbled,

but not overly fatty.

An overly fatty cut like a ribeye,

a New York strip,

all that fat while it's in the oven,

is gonna render out and make your dough soggy.

Our end result is gonna be a crispy,

nice crusty dough wrapped over the filet mignon.

So every component today,

we just gotta keep in mind that moisture is our enemy.

So you wanna use a leaner cut.

Beef Wellington,

usually it's a nice big piece

that feeds six to eight to 10,

but we do it so that it's for one to two people.

We're doing a really simple seasoning here.

A nice sea salt, kosher salt.

I like more of the coarse crystals.

It takes a little bit longer to dissolve,

not too high but nice and high

so we get an even coating.

Top to bottom,

to back to front,

fresh ground black pepper.

Same thing with the salt.

And you wanna just kind of get a nice little coat.

Cover all sides.

And then we're just gonna let it sit for five minutes

while we get our pan hot.

I'm just gonna add a little oil

to coat the bottom of the pan.

Let the oil heat up.

Takes a couple minutes.

Biggest mistakes that people make

is not getting the pan hot enough

to create that initial crust.

You wanna use a neutral oil that has a high smoking point.

I use a sunflower oil,

see it kind of starting to smoke a little bit.

Then you know you're ready to go.

You just take a piece of meat

and you start with one side.

Give it a nice little push down

and just let it rest there for a while.

If you look around the bottom edges here,

you see that Maillard reaction starting.

So nice and brown.

Also, it's gonna be kind of loose on the pan,

but once you see that brown

starting to happen on the bottom,

you know you're just about there.

We're gonna be doing this over and over again today.

Season, cook and cool,

season cook and cool

just to get that final product that we need.

You got a nice little crust there.

It's still a little brown in the middle,

so I'm gonna leave it there for another minute.

One of the biggest mistakes

that people make is not letting it sit long enough

to get that nice sear.

You wanna let it sit there,

you're not gonna hurt it.

So this is just about perfect.

Maybe a little bit over.

Each side's gonna get quicker.

The first side takes the longest,

so I seared it on on all the sides.

We have a nice golden brown all the way around.

From there,

we're gonna pop it in the cooler.

It's all about the rhythm.

Season, cook and cool.

Beef is all ready to go.

So now we're gonna move on to the mushrooms.

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Duxelles is that French fancy term

for mushroom paste.

Classic duxelles,

it's usually cremini mushrooms chopped up really fine.

Sweat it out with some shallots,

a little white wine, maybe some herbs.

We do a little bit of a spin on it.

So along with shallots,

we add some finely chopped leeks,

little bit of garlic and a parsnip

for a little bit of sweetness.

We have beautiful maitake mushrooms,

beech mushrooms or hon-shimejis,

king trumpets and then your good old button mushroom

or cremini mushroom.

I've taken all these ingredients already

and I've put them all separately through a food processor

to get them as small as possible.

So now we're gonna go get it on the stove.

We're gonna add a splash of neutral oil

and then I'm gonna add a little bit of butter.

The oil has a higher smoking point.

Combining the two,

you're gonna give the butter a higher smoking point.

First, finely chopped shallots.

We wanna get these into the pan evenly as possible.

Shallots add a onion flavor

plus a little bit of sweetness to the mushrooms.

We don't want to get any color on it,

so you want to adjust the heat.

And while that's about halfway done,

we're gonna add our finely chopped leeks.

This is adding more of a fresh onion element,

chopped garlic.

It's not traditional,

but come on.

Who doesn't love garlic?

This smells delicious right now.

Next we're gonna add parsnips,

which adds a nice level of sweetness to this dish.

So we wanna get that sweated out a little bit.

And then we're gonna add our mushrooms.

The star of the show here,

I'm sweating this out a little bit

and you can see that it's starting to get dry

because the fond is starting to build up

on the bottom of the pan.

Fond is the natural sugars

adhering to the bottom of the pan.

For this,

we want to add a little bit of white wine

to de-glaze the bottom of the pan.

I know we're trying to pull out the moisture,

but adding a little moisture

is gonna create more of a richness

and a more depth of flavor.

I also like to throw a couple bay leaves in

just to give that extra layer of flavor

and a little more sweetness to it.

It's probably gonna take about like 10, 15 minutes

to get to that consistency that you want.

We are just about there.

It's starting to stick to the bottom of the pan again.

That means we're almost out of all our moisture

and we are going to transfer it

to a separate container so it can cool.

The colder you keep everything,

the better it's gonna come out.

Having everything too warm will make the dough melt

and you'll get a thin dough that doesn't puff.

So we are gonna get this in the cooler

and then we're on to the Swiss chard.

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This is not a traditional addition to a Wellington.

Most wellingtons will have a fatty pate element to it,

either like Foie gras or like a chicken liver.

This is our play on that fat element.

So we're gonna start with our fat in the bottom of the pan.

Let that heat up a little bit

over like a medium-low heat.

We're gonna add some of our butter for extra flavor

and a little more fattiness,

and we're gonna get that melted in the oil here.

Once that butter is all melted in that pan,

we're gonna add our thinly sliced onions.

So I get that a nice even layer.

So we're sweating, not sauteing.

Sweating is pulling the moisture out

and making 'em tender.

Again over a medium heat so we don't burn it.

So when we're about halfway sweated out with these onions,

we're gonna add our sliced garlic.

Season as you go.

The salt helps to draw the moisture

out of the onions and garlic.

Next our Swiss chard.

Swiss chard is a hearty leafy green.

We leave it on the stem,

we just trim the ends.

We give it a nice blanche in salted boiling water

and then dunk it into an ice bath to cool it down

and retain that color.

We use a rainbow Swiss chard,

so there's the reds and the yellows.

There's still gonna be a little bit of moisture in there,

but the heat in this pan is what's gonna

have that evaporate.

Next, I'm going to add a mixture of mustards.

Here I have three quarters part Dijon

to one quarter part whole grain mustard.

I'm gonna add all this to it.

I'm gonna add a little bit of white wine also.

You see it almost immediately evaporated out of the pot,

still dry on the bottom.

And then we're adding our bechamel,

a mixture of a roux and scalded milk.

That's basically our fat that we're adding to this mixture.

We're not looking to really cook this anymore,

we're just looking to warm it up

so that it all could get incorporated.

Traditionally in a Beef Wellington,

mustard is used as a flavor component.

We use it two different types

because the Dijon has that spicy bite to it,

and the whole grain has that more mustardy dull bite

with a little bit of crunch from the seeds.

So I'm gonna stop right there

'cause I don't wanna really cook everything.

We're gonna get this out of the pan.

We're gonna get it cool

so we can get onto the next step.

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Every Wellington usually has

some kind of salty, umami,

meaty element to it.

Usually you find it like with prosciutto,

we wanted to put our own little Gage & Tollner spin on it.

So we do our thin sliced

house smoked and cured bacon.

The bacon adds that saltiness,

that umami with a little bit of smoke.

You really want as thin as humanly possible.

We're just going to take nice small chunks

to wrap around our filet mignon.

Bacon's all sliced and we are ready for assembly.

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All our products are cooked, cooled, seasoned,

and ready to put together.

For our pastry layer,

we use a pate brisee,

which is a form of short crust.

At home, you're most likely gonna use a puff pastry.

Puff pastry just is made a little bit more delicately

and laminated so it has more layers

and it's a little more fluffy.

A pate brisee is more of a pie crust,

so very similar in flavor.

This is already cut to the size that we need.

All my ingredients

are all right outta the fridge, very cold.

We're gonna start with our bacon layer.

We wanna take our bacon and cut it down to size.

If it's too big,

we want it to come maybe a half inch from the edges

so that it's not falling out of the dough

after we roll it.

We have our nice layer of bacon.

It's gonna be rotated over and flipped up.

So that's gonna be the top.

We lay the bacon down first to create a barrier

between the dough and our creamy Swiss chard.

Put a nice amount evenly spread

so that we cover most of it,

but not all the way to the edges.

Our Swiss chard is the most wet,

so we want create a barrier in between the dough

and all the other components.

And now we're gonna go into our mushroom duxelles

and then spread that over the Swiss chard

in a nice even layer.

And then we move on to our filet of beef.

And we want to take our mustard mixture

and we just want to kind of spread it all over that meat

just so that we have even flavor throughout.

We have a little bit of mustard in the Swiss chard,

but this is where we're getting

most of our mustard flavor from.

But now we're gonna wrap it.

So this can tear.

So you just wanna be really careful.

So we're gonna go from closest to you as far over

as you can while keeping it tight to the meat.

And then we're gonna come the far away

over to the top to overlap them just a little bit.

You don't want too much extra dough.

And then just seal that off with your finger,

the heat from your finger will bind it together

and then we're gonna flip it over,

tuck in the edges,

but make sure you go down so you don't have your seal up.

And then we're gonna spin that around

'cause I like to do everything to my right.

And do that on the same side.

We're gonna come up, over,

and back down.

There's no holes, no cracks.

Looks like everything's pretty much sealed.

If you see anything,

you can pinch it together a little bit.

Remember you gotta work quickly so that it doesn't warm up

and it stays in an even form,

but we're not done yet.

We have to go that little bit extra.

We decided on the lattice,

it's very classic.

Oh, we have this cool little lattice cutter,

that's multiple of wheels with sections

that cut and don't cut.

So we're gonna carefully press it

all the way through while pressing down.

And that creates our lattice design.

And we're just gonna take that.

And then we're gonna put this right over the top

as even as possible

so that it covers halfway down on both sides.

And we're just gonna give it a little bit

of a press to seal it.

And here we have our assembled Wellington.

This has to chill for a while,

so we are gonna get this in the cooler.

Once that's done chilling,

we're gonna make an egg wash and get it cooking.

Now we have our assembled,

ready and chilled Wellington.

You have your baking sheet

and you just want to get a little bit of fat

or oil on the bottom of it.

We're gonna make an egg wash to go over the top to get

that nice even brown crust all around.

You wanna make sure that

there are no strands left in the egg.

I'd like to add a tad bit of water

just to loosen it up so it spreads a little bit better.

And so here it's a nice liquid form.

You're not seeing any strands holding together

from the egg at all.

Take our pastry brush and we will brush all parts of it.

Every side,

all the way down to the bottom.

My oven is preheating to 400 degrees.

After we get that all egg wash,

we're gonna get this straight into the oven.

As you might be thinking,

how do you check the temperature on the inside?

We have it down to a science

of how long it needs to be in the oven

at a certain temperature.

But at home probe thermometer that comes outta your oven

and displays the internal temperature on the outside

is probably your way to go.

I would go from one of the ends and stick it straight in

and put the crust around it

so that there's no air holes for things to escape

and evaporate.

And you just leave it in there until it's completely done

and completely cool.

And then right before slicing it,

you can pull it out.

All right, let's do it.

We're at our 20 minute timer

and we're gonna get it outta the oven

and let it sit and rest for about 10 minutes.

The resting period is very important

for when you're slicing into it

that it doesn't bleed out everywhere.

The resting is going to help it finish cooking,

plus redistribute the juices throughout the filet mignon.

We're gonna take our nice mashed potatoes

and we're gonna do a nice little bed for it to sit in.

We to that with fines herbes.

Chives, parsley,

tarragon and chervil.

It just gives that a little bit extra brightness

and freshness to the dish.

Find the center and you wanna do a nice

little slicing motion,

pressing very softly.

You're gonna get a little bit of crumble.

We just take our spatula.

We get it into the bed of mashed potatoes.

It's a really nice pairing to go along

with the red wine Demi and the Wellington.

And there you have it.

By looking at it,

you can see all your layers.

The crust, nice, flaky, golden brown.

I'm really excited about this.

I get the earthiness of the mushrooms.

I get a little bit of smokiness of the bacon.

Get that nice buttery,

crispy crust and the beautiful meatiness of the filet

with a hint of mustard

and it all just kind of balances itself.

This is perfect.

Just remember with a Wellington,

you really want to focus on temperature and moisture.

For temperature,

everything needs to be cooled down,

refrigerator temperature,

before assembling.

With the moisture of everything,

you want to keep it as dry as possible

because that dough is just going to get all soggy.

Don't be intimidated by Beef Wellington.

It is worth the effort.

It's worth the time.

Whether it's during the holidays

or any time of the year,

it's just a fun little creative project to make it home.

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