We Ate Like it Was 1999

Happy New Year!

My husband and I brought in 2009 with a bottle of champagne, a couple of movies and a fabulous multi-course meal.

We started with an appetizer of shrimp cocktail, followed by a salad of roasted pears, grapes, dried cranberries, sugared walnuts, gruyere cheese and a cranberry vinaigrette. For an entree, we had Beef Wellington, broccolini with pine nuts and baked potatoes. After the ball dropped we finished the meal with chocolate molten lava cake with fresh raspberries.

Having never made Beef Wellington before, my initial instinct was to find a recipe online. What I ended up doing though, was using a recipe by Gordon Ramsay to understand how to assemble the beef, but made up my own recipe for the duxelle (aka the layer in between the beef and the puff pastry).

Emily's Recipe for Beef Wellington Duxelle:

4 ounces butter

1 package cubed pancetta (Italian bacon)

1 shallot, minced

1 package baby bella mushrooms - diced finely

10 fresh thyme sprigs, with leaves stripped from twigs

1/2 cup Marsala wine

1/4 cup Maker's Mark Whiskey

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Over a medium heat, melt the butter and add the pancetta, stirring until crisp. Add the minced shallot and cook until soft. Add the mushrooms and thyme and stir for about 5 minutes. Add the marsala and whiskey and stir until liquid is absorbed by mushroom mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the mixture into a bowl and refrigerate until cool.

The below slide show shows our meal and the process for making the Beef Wellington (HINT: Scrolling your mouse over the slideshow will bring up the controls to pause or change the speed):