Beef "Venison" Wellington for Christmas.... HUGE hit!!

[bigdonniebrasco]

My wife has been on me to make this for literally 8 years! I finally broke down and did it, and it was better than I could have hoped! Served with whipped Yukon gold potatoes and a homemade brown mushroom gravy!

If any of you would like to tackle this, I'd be happy to share the "recipe".

Made this with a section of backstrap from a huge doe I shot recently.

 

[Gr8bawana]

Wow! That looks delicious.

 

[bigdonniebrasco]

Thanks man! It was just about the tastiest game dish I've had in my 50 years!

 

[Gerald Martin]

Forget about sharing the recipe. I just want to come to dinner the next time you make it! That looks amazing.

 

[Jamen]

What type of dough did you use?

 

[Nameless Range]

I've never had it, but dang that looks delicious!

 

[Pagosa]

Please share the recipe. thanks, Preston

 

[Brittany Chukarman]

That's a work of art! Excellent job!

 

[Dave N]

+1 on the recipe sharing!

 

[HSi-ESi]

Sweet. That's on my do-list of things to make. Nice work.

 

[el unit]

Wow, that looks incredible! And I can't even imagine how good it was to eat. Thanks for sharing.

 

[bigdonniebrasco]

What type of dough did you use?

I'll post up the recipe here shortly, the dough was just puff pastry.

 

[devon deer]

That looks tasty to say the least, what is the venison coated in, pate or mushrooms?
Cooked to perfection!
Cheers
Richard

 

[bigdonniebrasco]

If you decide to try this I would recommend watching a few YouTube videos on it or something similar. It's not all that difficult with regard to "technique" there are just enough critical components that a small misstep could wreck all your hard work.
Here is a general "Wellington" recipe to give you the basics of the process, and the ingredients. Basically I prepared mine like this recipe....BUT... the things I changed to make it work with a smaller, leaner backstrap are crucial.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/the-ultimate-beef-wellington-recipe2-1952280

This is just a pre-seared backstrap wrapped in mushroom paste, then wrapped in pastry dough and baked.

Make the duxelles (fancy name for mushrooms in a food processor) just like this recipe or you can Google a recipe for duxelles. It's very simple! The important part of making the duxelles is cooking ALL the moisture out!! I won't repeat the directions of the recipe I will just point out the parts that are vital to your success. You will process the mushrooms, then saute' them in a pan until they are no longer "leaking" any moisture. I like mine to almost resemble browned ground meat.
Once cooked down, you need to cool this in the fridge until it is COLD!
The good thing is you can make all this in advance and then your actual cooking time can be approx 35-40 min.

*** Before this type of application I like to place my meat on an elevated rack (no packaging) in my fridge for at least a day. This will allow excess moisture to leave the meat.

Normally when we make game meat steaks we let the meat come up to room temps before cooking.... not for this. You want the meat COLD, and your pan (I like cast iron) HOT HOT HOT!! You need to hard sear your meat on all sides including the ends! Your objective is to sear it very well, while "cooking" it as little as possible. Once seared, get it off the heat and chilled down ASAP! I put mine on a cooling rack rested in my deep freeze for 30 min.

Now you will have chilled duxelles, and chilled meat....

Beyond this you will follow the recipe as it's written.

So the take-aways that make this work with venison in order to keep it rare-med rare are:
Keep everything as cold as you can (not frozen) up until you are going to bake! You can even get your Wellington completely wrapped up and ready to bake, and then refrigerate it until you are ready to bake it.

The biggest thing I did to guard against over cooking is to use a real-time meat thermometer inserted into the center to tell me when the meat hits 120-125. Then pull it and let it rest for 10-15 min. It will "coast" on up to rare-med rare.

I'm not a recipe writer, and I'm not a chef so I apologize if this is tough to follow... feel free to as me specific questions.

Thanks

Don

 

[Pagosa]

Thanks Don, For posting this recipe, I want to try it with pronghorn.

 

[bigdonniebrasco]

just give me a shout if you have any questions!