Beef Wellington

{{Infobox food

| name = Beef Wellington

| image = Beef Wellington 2019.jpg

| upright = 1.1

| caption = A whole beef Wellington

| place_of_origin = England or France

| course = Main

| served = Hot

| main_ingredient = Beef, shortcrust pastry, duxelles

}}

File:Beef Wellington - Whole.jpg

Beef Wellington is a baked steak dish of English or French origin, made out of fillet steak and duxelles wrapped in shortcrust pastry. Some recipes include wrapping the contents in prosciutto, or dry-cured ham, which helps retain moisture while preventing the pastry from becoming soggy; use of puff pastry;{{cite web |last1=Oliver |first1=Jamie |title=Epic beef wellington recipe |url=https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef/beef-wellington/ |access-date=25 January 2025}} and/or coating the beef in mustard. Classical recipes may include pâté.{{cite web |last1=Blanc |first1=Raymond |title=Beef Wellington |url=https://www.raymondblanc.com/recipes/beef-wellington/ |access-date=25 January 2025}}

A whole tenderloin may be wrapped and baked, and then sliced for serving, or the tenderloin may be sliced into individual portions before wrapping and baking.{{Cite web |title=Beef wellington |url=https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/beef-wellington |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=BBC Good Food |language=en}}

Naming

While historians generally believe that the dish is named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, the precise origin of the name is unclear and no definite connection between the dish and the duke has been found.{{ cite web |url=http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodmeats.html#beefwellington |title=Beef Wellington |work=The Food Timeline |first=Lynne |last=Olver |author-link=Lynne Olver}}

Leah Hyslop, writing in The Daily Telegraph, observed that by the time Wellington became famous, meat baked in pastry was a well-established part of English cuisine, and that the dish's similarity to the French filet de bœuf en croûte (fillet of beef in pastry) might imply that "beef Wellington" was a "timely patriotic rebranding of a trendy continental dish".{{cite web |last1=Hyslop |first1=Leah |title=Potted histories: Beef Wellington |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10252209/Potted-histories-Beef-Wellington.html |work=The Daily Telegraph |access-date=14 May 2015 |date=21 August 2013}} However, she cautioned, there are no 19th-century recipes for the dish. There is a mention of "fillet of beef, à la Wellington" in the Los Angeles Times of 1903, and an 1899 reference in a menu from the Hamburg-America line.{{Cite web|url=http://menus.nypl.org/menu_pages/37941|title=First Class Menu, 10th Nov 1899, Hamburg-America line|website=menus.nypl.org|access-date=2018-10-29}}{{Dead link|date=June 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

In the Polish classic cookbook, finished in 1909 and published for the first time in 1910, by Maria Ochorowicz-Monatowa (1866-1925), Uniwersalna książka kucharska ("The Universal Cooking Book"), there is a recipe for "Polędwica wołowa à la Wellington" (beef fillet à la Wellington). The recipe does not differ from the dish later known under this name. It is a beef filet enveloped together with duxelles in puff pastry, baked, and served with a truffle or Madeira sauce. The author, who mastered her cooking skills both in Paris and Vienna at the end of the 19th century, claimed that she had received this recipe from the cook of the imperial court in Vienna. She also included "filet à la Wellington" in the menus proposed for the "exquisite dinners".{{cite book |last= Ochorowicz-Monatowa |first= Marya |date= 1910 |title= Uniwersalna książka kucharska|language= pl |location= Lwów; Warszawa-Łódź|publisher= Księgarnia H. Altenberga; Ludwik Fiszer|pages= 52, 304 }}{{cite web |url= http://salontradycjipolskiej.pl/marya-ochorowicz-monatowa-uniwersalna-ksiazka-kucharska |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190216025150/http://salontradycjipolskiej.pl/marya-ochorowicz-monatowa-uniwersalna-ksiazka-kucharska |url-status= dead |archive-date= 2019-02-16 | title= Marya Ochorowicz-Monatowa "Uniwersalna książka kucharska"|author= |language= pl | website= Salon tradycji polskiej|publisher= Muzeum Lwowa i Kresów }}

In Le Répertoire de la Cuisine a professional reference cookbook published by Théodore Gringoire and Louis Saulnier in 1914, there is mentioned a garnish "Wellington" to beef, described as: "Fillet browned in butter and in the oven, coated in poultry stuffing with dry duxelles added, placed in rolled-out puff pastry. Cooked in the oven. Garnished with peeled tomatoes, lettuce, Pommes château".

An installment of a serialized story entitled "Custom Built" by Sidney Herschel Small in 1930 had two of its characters in a restaurant in Los Angeles that had "beef Wellington" on its menu.{{cite news |title=Custom Built |first=Sidney Herschel |last=Small |newspaper=Chicago Daily Tribune |date=9 January 1930 |page=27 |id={{ProQuest|181103725}} }} The first occurrence of the dish recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary is a quotation from a 1939 New York food guide with "Tenderloin of Beef Wellington" which is cooked, left to cool, and rolled in a pie crust.

Variations

In the Food Network show Good Eats, Alton Brown discusses a variant using the cheaper pork tenderloin instead of beef.{{cite web | title=Tender is the Pork | website=Food Network | date=May 30, 2015 | url=https://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/good-eats/episodes/tender-is-the-pork | access-date=November 24, 2022|last1=Brown|first1=Alton}} A common vegetarian variation of the dish, known as "beet Wellington", replaces the beef with beetroot and has been featured on food competition shows such as MasterChef Australia.{{Cite web |title=Vegan Beet Wellington |url=https://www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/recipes/vegan-beetroot-wellington/ |access-date=30 August 2024 |website=Gordon Ramsay Restaurants}}{{Cite web |title=Pressure Test: Flynn McGarry's Beet Wellington |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6103822/ |access-date=30 August 2024 |website=IMDb}}