I was recently struck with a half-baked idea to make a corned beef Wellington.
The inspiration is basically that I have a beef tenderloin sitting in my freezer that I was planning to make a beef Wellington with soon
And St Paddy's Day is coming up, and I was also debating on doing a corned beef.
I have some experience curing meat, I've made my own bacon and corned beef from scratch in the past, so this isn't totally out of my wheelhouse.
But I've never attempted to corn a beef tenderloin (and from my limited googling, I'm not sure that anyone else has ever been crazy enough to try it either) so I'm not too sure what that process will do to a tender cut like this.
I'm also looking for some inspiration on how to sort of "Irish" it up a bit (yes, I'm aware that corned beef isn't particularly Irish, it's still made its way into the Irish American diet as a St Paddy's thing)
Normally I flambe the duxelles with some cognac, so I'm figuring I'll swap that for some Irish whiskey
I also normally wrap some prosciutto between the pastry and duxelles as a bit of a moisture barrier, I feel like maybe there's an argument for using some thin-sliced bacon for that instead (probably back bacon if I can get my hands on it, but that's not easy in the US) and maybe wrap some cabbage into it as well
I normally serve it with a green peppercorn sauce, so I figure I'll work some Guinness into that.
Curious if anyone has any thoughts on this. Anything else you would or wouldn't do with this idea? Has anyone ever been struck by madness before and attempted to corn a tenderloin?
Edit: still brainstorming, maybe some sausage or black pudding (also a tough thing to find around me) mixed into the duxelles?
No photos, because it didn't turn out the prettiest, but it was, I think, a good proof of concept
I ended up going with a chuck roast for 2 reasons
It was cheaper and I didn't want to risk the fillet I have on an experiment
I was worried about how well it would hold up to the curing process. Sitting in the brine for a few days does cause some breakdown of the connective tissues and I was worried about the meat just kind of disintegrating if I used something as tender as fillet. I think that was the right call, the chuck came out nicely. If I do it again I may try something else, because the chuck roast was more of a big flat rectangle and it was a little awkward to wrap. I've seen Chuck "mock tenders" once or twice that are more of a cylindrical shape that would probably be a good choice, they just weren't readily available when I went shopping.
I wrapped some cabbage between the duxelles and the pastry, that seemed to work pretty well. The bottom did end up a little soggy, but that's something I've often struggled with when doing a wellington.
Cured the meat like I normally would for a corned beef, not going to share the recipe because I'll be honest, a lot of cured meat recipes out there seem like they're based on a lot of guesswork, and I don't want anyone poisoning themselves with nitrites based on my advice. Do some research if you want to try that, or just use store bought corned beef.
Seared the beef on all sides the day before.
For the duxelles I just put a bunch of mushrooms, some shallots, and garlic through my food processor, and cooked it down for as long as my attention span would allow. I'm pretty sure there was enough moisture there that I could have kept it going on high heat almost all day without worrying too much about it burning (at least with my stove which admittedly isn't great)
I also added some carrots to the duxelles, not sure that really added anything particularly interesting to the flavor profile. Didn't hurt, but I'd probably skip that in the future.
Deglazed with some Jameson. Lit it on fire, I'll be honest, I think flambeing your duxelles is mostly for the cook's entertainment.
Lightly blanched some cabbage leaves.
Wrapped it all up, gave it an egg wash and threw it in the oven.
Kept the seasoning on all of that pretty light figured the corned beef had plenty of salt and spices in it.
And for the sauce, I sauted up some more shallots and garlic, added some Guinness and beef stock, a few dashes of Worcestershire, some good grainy mustard and some brined green peppercorns, and a healthisplash of Jameson, and reduced it down, finished it with some heavy cream.
I like the idea of adding some black pudding to or instead of the duxelles, I feel like that would go a little better and fit the theme more, but that's hard to source around me. Maybe I'll make an effort to track it down if I decide to do it again.
Probably need to tweak the spices and such I used for the corned beef a bit, I feel like I didn't quite hit the flavor profile I was looking for.
Overall I consider it a success, just a few things I want to tweak for the next time.