Deconstructed Beef Wellington

Last Updated on February 16, 2024 by Carne Diem

Protein:

Origin: British, European, American Fusion

Method: Grill or Smoker

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This reverse seared deconstructed beef wellington has all of the flavors of the classic steak dish with less effort. The medium rare filet mignon is served with a prosciutto and puff pastry weave, sauteed mushrooms, pan seared pate, and a red wine sauce.

My wife and I love Beef Wellington. The issue is, it is pretty labor intensive, and our children are not necessarily fans of this classic British dish. Too many times we prepared beef Wellington only to find our children's plates covered with puff pastry, pate, and duxelles with the steak devoured. It was based on this experience that we stated looking for a way for us all to enjoy Beef Wellington, without the children wasting half of the dish. Thus, our Deconstructed Beef Wellington was born. This version enables us to enjoy the classic flavors of Beef Wellington while still allowing the kids to enjoy a perfectly cooked steak, thanks to reverse searing the beef tenderloin.

Making the Deconstructed Beef Wellington

Gather your ingredients

To make the Deconstructed Beef Wellington you will need a 1.5-2-pound beef tenderloin, your favorite steak rub (or use our recipe listed below), mushrooms, prosciutto, a sheet of puff pastry, beef demi-glace, and pate. If you elect to make the wine sauce to go with the dish you will also need a shallot, red wine, beef stock concentrate, black peppercorns, olive oil, butter, and fresh thyme.

Seasoning the Deconstructed Beef Wellington

We used prime beef tenderloin for our Deconstructed Beef Wellington. We have found that buying the whole tenderloin is a much more economical way to buy steaks if you have the freezer space or if you are cooking for a crowd. It also allows you to use a reverse sear method to cook your steaks so that you can end up with a thick, picture perfect, steakhouse filet every time.

Prepare the beef tenderloin by patting dry and coating the outside of the tenderloin with your favorite steak rub or a SPG rub.

We like to use a simple rub consisting of kosher salt, coarse and fine ground black pepper, garlic powder, and mustard powder. For a 1.5-2 pound beef tenderloin we typically use about 2 tablespoon of rub. If cooking a larger filet about 1 tablespoon per pound is a good estimate.

After coating the beef tenderloin in the rub, cover and let set at room temperature while you prep your grill and the rest of the ingredients.

Making the Red Wine Sauce

Making the wine sauce will require the most time for the recipe as you need to cook it down a couple times. I would recommend allowing at least an hour to make the sauce. We typically start this first and then prepare the rest of the meal while it is simmering.

First, finely dice the shallot and rinse 1-2 sprigs of fresh thyme.

You will need 1 cup of red wine for the recipe. Choose one you enjoy drinking, because you will have some left over, to sip while you prepare the meal.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add in the shallots and peppercorns and cook until the shallots are softened. Add in the sprigs of thyme and stir. Next add in the red wine. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until reduced by about half.

After reducing the wine by half, it is time to add the water and beef stock concentrate. This is a bit of a short cut compared to using straight beef stock as it is already concentrated, we simply reconstitute it with about half the recommended amount of water. If you are using real beef stock, you will need to use about 1.5 cups and cook it down a lot more.

After adding in the stock simmer until reduced by at least half.

Strain the sauce and return to the pan. Continue to reduce until slightly thickened.

Once reduced and slightly thickened, turn off the heat and stir in the butter. Cover and keep warm until ready to use.

If you are looking for other sauce ideas, then check out our Malbec Sauce For Steak or Stout Sauce for Steak or serve with our Bone Marrow Compound Butter.

Making the Prosciutto-Puff Pastry Weaves

While the sauce is simmering you can prepare the prosciutto-pastry weaves. After bringing the puff pastry to room temp for about 40 minutes, cut it into thin strips. Likewise cut the prosciutto into thin strips.

Weave the puff pastry and prosciutto strips together. We typically like about 4 inch squares but feel free to make them to any size that you want. Make one prosciutto-puff pastry square per steak. Bake the squares at 350 degrees until the puff pastry has puffed up and is cooked through. This typically takes about 20 minutes.

Preparing the Sautéed Mushrooms for the Deconstructed Beef Wellington

For the sautéed mushrooms you can use either fresh or dehydrated mushrooms. We choose to use dried chanterelle mushrooms as fresh mushrooms were out of season but if you find some good looking fresh shrooms, use them.

Combine the mushrooms and one slice of torn prosciutto into a small sauce pan. We like to cook the mushrooms on the grill while the tenderloin is smoking, so we typically cook them in a small cast iron sauce pot.

Reverse Searing the Beef Tenderloin

We typically use a concentrated demi-glace for this recipe and reconstitute it per instructions. We really like the demi-glace concentrates from Savory Choice and More Than Gourmet. If using fresh mushrooms, we simply add the demi-glace as is directly to the mushrooms in the saucepan. When we are using dehydrated mushrooms, we add a few extra tablespoons of water to the pan as well. Heat the mushrooms until warmed through and then cover to keep warm. Add a little extra water if they appear to get too dry. For richer flavored mushrooms add a tablespoon of butter.

When ready to cook set up your grill for both direct and indirect cooking. Heat to 225 degrees. Cook the beef tenderloin over indirect heat until it reaches an internal temp of about 90 degrees.

Flip the tenderloin over and cook until it reaches an internal temperature of 123 degrees then remove from the grill or smoker and cover with foil. This should result in about a medium rare steak when finished. For medium continue to cook to about 128-130 degrees.

After removing the tenderloin, increase the temperature of the grill to at least 500 degrees and set up for direct heat. Once the grill has reached temp and the other portions of the meal are complete, slice the beef tenderloin into individual steaks.

Sear the steaks about 1 minute then rotate 90 degrees and sear an additional minute. Flip the steaks and repeat with the other side.

Remove the steaks from the grill and rest for at least 5 minutes.

Making the Fried Pate

While the steaks are resting, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a small skillet over medium high heat. Fry the pate in the oil for about 30-45 seconds per side to sear. We typically like chicken or pork pate, but if you are feeling less daring you can use mushroom pate. We have even used truffle mousse which turned out great. If using mousse simply use it as a topping or side, don't fry it.

Remove from the skillet, cube and season with coarse salt.

Serving the Deconstructed Beef Wellington

Serve the grilled steaks with the mushrooms, fried pate, prosciutto-pastry weaves, and red wine sauce to complete your Deconstructed Beef Wellington.

Pair the with red wine or some Blackberry Red Sangria. If you want to add a salad to the meal, try our Fried Boursin Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette. Consider serving with British favorites like mushy peas or roasted potatoes.

Still want more steak? Give some of our other steak recipes a try:

• Sous Vide Florentine Style Porterhouse Steak
• Filet Mignon with Goat Cheese Sauce and Grand Marnier Sautéed Peppers
• Beef Short Rib Tomahawk
• Reverse Seared Argentinian Ribeye With Chimichurri Sauce
• Quattro Formaggi Crusted Steak
• Reverse Seared Beef Teres Major Steaks
• Garlic Basted Rotisserie Picanha
• Grilled Brazilian Fraldinha 

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