whine & dine

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It’s like I’m rabidly cooking and writing posts with the burning fever of someone whose life may end at any moment. Already, I’ve been told that I’m behaving like I’m going to prison (or going to die) instead of starting work. Well, “seize the day” has always been a governing principle in how I live my life, whether my seizing lies in frenetically cooking and filling my days with activity or laying back and watching episode after episode of Boston Legal.

Bunny and I moving to our current apartment at the beginning of the year coincided with the suddenly boom in cookbooks that I own. In a valiant attempt to placate her protests of “not another cookbook?!!!!”, I started a little routine whenever I got one. After I flipped through it quickly the first time, I’d go over each new addition to my stash with her slowly, letting her pick out whichever recipes she wanted me to make for her. I saw it as a way of paying tax on the space in the shelf it was taking, and she saw it as a considerably cheaper way to get whatever dishes she desired, as compared to hunting down restaurants that served those particular dishes – if any at all in Singapore.

As the number of cookbooks in the now-sagging shelf grew, the list of on-demand dishes increased in length exponentially. Having spent over a decade living in London, my bunny – although inclined to belittle British fare as overcooked, grey, stodgy and tasteless (at least when referring to the canteen/pub versions) – has grown fond of England’s food, and – dare I say – misses it. While each book would typically have at least 10 recipes flagged for bunny-consumption, and some of the bigger ones (or those that contained many recipes for British fare) have lists of more than 50 dishes. It’s really not surprising, then, that the few recipes she campaigns for tend towards that cuisine. Roast Beef with Yorkshire Puds, Jam Rolly-Polly, Bakewell Tart, Crumpets, Roast Chicken or Roast Pork (with Crackling) served with Roast Potatoes and gravy, and so on. While I’ve tried my best to accommodate her requests, the unfortunate fact remains that many of the dishes she’s craving are difficult to make for just two.

Beef Wellington was right at the top of that list. And while I love it too, I’d never made it before on my own, and the only version I knew was the sort that my aunt would make for Christmas dinner every year – a gigantic one that the two of us, no matter how greedy, could never finish on our own. To my delight, one of my favourite cookbooks – aptly named The Cook’s Book had a recipe for individual sized Wellingtons.

I had two dear friends over for dinner on Saturday night. And since one of them grew up in England and is similarly an Anglophile (when it comes to food anyway), I decided it was high time I did this dish, and boy am I glad I did. The meat was deliciously juicy, the mushrooms and prosciutto made this a self-saucing dish, and the puff pastry was crispy and bursting with the flavour of butter.

Beef Wellingtons
(based on Marcus Wareing’s recipe, as transcribed in The Cook’s Book)

4 beef fillets (each between 120-135g in weight)
1 medium onion, finely diced
4 small garlic cloves, minced
leaves from 4 sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
200g button mushrooms, finely diced
25g dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in 1/4 cup warm water, drained and finely diced, soaking liquid reserved
2 tbsp double cream
4 chive pancakes (see below)
8 slices of prosciutto
750g puff pastry (I bought a ready-made package of 4 sheets)
3 egg yolks, beaten

Heat some oil in a heavy frying pan over medium heat until very hot. Season the steaks well on all sides with salt and pepper. Sear the steaks for 30-45 seconds on each side (including the edges). Remove from pan and cool. Heat the remaining oil in the pan and add the onion, garlic, thyme and bay leaf, and fry on medium-low heat until slightly coloured. Season with salt and pepper. Add in the mushrooms with the reserved soaking liquid, and stir until softened and the liquid has mostly evaporated off. Add in the cream, stir, reduce a little, then remove from heat and set aside to cool. Discard the bay leaf.

Triple-line a cutting board with clingfilm. Place a chive pancake on the clingfilm, lay two overlapping slices of prosciutto over the middle, spread 1/4 of the mushroom mixture on it (I used about 2-3 tbsp for each Wellington, and let bunny hoover up the extras), then top with a steak. Gather the edges over the steak like a moneybag, and snip off the excess pancake with scissors. Likewise, gather the clingfilm around the parcel like a moneybag, and twist the clingfilm tightly, as close to the parcel as possible, to secure the shape. Make 3 more parcels the same way, and Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour to set the shape.

While the parcels are in the fridge, take the puff pastry out and let it thaw. On a lightly floured surface, knead each slice of pastry for 5-10 minutes (sprinkling lightly with more flour if it gets too sticky), then roll out into discs roughly 3mm thick. Store in the fridge between layers or greaseproof paper until needed.

Lay one disc of pastry out. Discarding the clingfilm, place a steak-parcel inthe middle of the the pastry disc, seam side up. Brush the rest of the pastry with the beaten egg yolk, then bring the edges up over the top and trim off the excess pastry. Seal the edges, pinching and smoothing the joins with water, then turn the parcels seam-side down and smooth into a round shape with your hands. Place seam side down on discs of greaseproof paper and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Brush with egg yolk, chill for another 15 minutes, and repeat one more time.

Place a heavy baking sheet int he oven and preheat the oven to 180C. Just before making, score curved lines in the parcels with the tip of a very sharp knife, working form the top to almost halfway down.Remove the parcels from their greaseproof paper, and place directly on the hot baking sheet (do not line the sheet, or the pastry at the bottom won’t cook sufficiently) and bake for 14 minutes for rare (18 minutes for medium). Ensure that you watch the parcels and rotate the sheet if necessary.

Chive Pancakes
(from The Cook’s Book)

3 large eggs
110g plain flour
150ml full cream milk
1 tbsp finely chopped chives (I prefer to use scissors to cut the chives into the batter so that they do not bruise)
oil for frying

Beat the eggs and flour together in a bowl. When smooth, beat in the milk to make a thin consistency – it should be similar to pouring cream, add a little more milk if necessary. Add the chives and season with salt and pepper.

Heat a 8-9in pancake pan with a little oil over medium-low heat, then remove the pan from the heat, and pour in a small ladle of batter, swirling the pan so a thin layer of the batter coats the pan. Return the pan to very low heat, and cook until the top is set and the bottom has just started to brown. Once the sides of the pancake start coming away from the pan, loosen it with an offset spatula and flip over. Cook for another 30-45 seconds until the bottom has coloured lightly too.

Repeat until you have 4 perfect pancakes. There is enough batter to make at least 6-8 pancakes, but you need the extra to be sure of getting 4 perfect ones.