Ingredients

The following ingredients have 4 Servings
  • 4 small beef fillet steaks, trimmed
  • olive oil
  • 1 shallot, finely chopped
  • butter
  • 200g chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped
  • a couple of sprigs thyme, leaves stripped and chopped
  • 300g puff pastry
  • 8 slices parma ham
  • 1 egg, beaten to glaze

Instruction

  • Heat a frying pan until very hot. Rub the steaks all over with olive oil and season well. Sear for a minute on each side, then remove from the pan and leave to cool completely.
  • Cook the shallot in a knob of butter until soft, add the mushrooms and thyme, then season and cook, stirring occasionally. The mushrooms will give out a bit of water, so keep cooking them until there is no moisture left in the pan. Leave to cool.
  • Roll out the pastry to 20p-thickness. Cut out 4 circles that are 2½cm larger than the fillets, and 4 more circles that are 3½cm larger. Sit the smaller circles on a baking sheet.
  • Sit the fillets on 2 overlapping pieces of ham and top each fillet with some of the mushroom mix.
  • Wrap each of the fillets up in the slices of ham.
  • Sit each fillet on the smaller pastry circles, then brush the edges with egg.
  • Drape over the larger circles and press to seal, making sure there are no air pockets.
  • Mark the edges with the back of a fork and glaze the outside with egg.
  • Score the top of the wellingtons. Chill for 15 minutes. Heat the oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7. Bake the wellingtons for 12 minutes for medium rare, 15 minutes for medium.