Christmas Dinner: Beef Wellington

Christmas Day we make beef wellington, accompanied by green beans with lemon and capers, duck fat potatoes, and a simple lettuce salad.  We start by cooking diced pancetta until crisp and then adding butter, assorted mushrooms, and diced shallot.  Once the mushrooms are browned, we add garlic, thyme, and vermouth and, after a little more cooking, set the mixture aside.  The beef tenderloin is tied into a log, browned on all sides, and set aside to cool.  We make a layer of sliced speck, cover it with the mushroom mixture, place the beef on top, roll the speck tightly around the beef, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate.  Several hours later, we roll out a puff pastry sheet, place the chilled beef/speck/mushroom log on it and roll the pastry tightly around the log.  We then brush with egg wash and bake.

Ingredients ready

Pancetta, mushrooms

Beef tenderloin, speck

Speck/mushroom roll

Wrapped in puff pastry

Done, ready to serve

We start with a cheese dip appetizer with crackers and sliced baguette while we set the table and pull together the salad, green beans, and potatoes.  Accompanied by pink champagne.

Cheese and champagne to start

Table ready

Salad

Preparing the vegetables

We blanch the green beans in boiling water, allow them to cool, then cook them in butter, garlic, and red pepper flakes, adding lemon zest at the end.  The potatoes are boiled until tender, cooled, carefully smashed in our hands until flat (but still in one piece), drizzled with duck fat, and baked with rosemary and garlic.  We  plate and serve dinner with a red Saint-Émilion Bordeaux wine,

Dinner is served!

Merry Christmas!

What a festive and delightful meal!