This is what we cooked for Christmas this year when in New Zealand. After all, if you have access to some of the finest lamb in the world, it would be rude not to use it!
I’ve made beef wellington several times before, as well as salmon en croute, but this was a foray into the unknown. Thankfully it was a very successful one and I will absolutely be making it again.
Ingredients
- 4 sheets of puff pastry (~750g)
- 600g lamb backstrap
- 3 gloves garlic
- 300g mushrooms
- Fresh rosemary
- 2tbsp butter or olive oil + 1 tsp butter
- 1 egg
- 300ml red wine
- 1 – 2 lamb stock cubes made up with 200ml boiling water
- 2 tbsp plain flour
Instructions
- Take the lamb out of the fridge and season with salt and pepper then leave to rest while you get the mushrooms ready
- Finely dice the mushrooms and garlic. They want to be the size of large breadcrumbs but not to the point of being liquified. You can use a food processor for this if you have one
- Heat about a teaspoon of butter in a saucepan over a medium high heat
- Seal the lamb on each side. It should have a little colour but not be cooked – then set aside on a plate
- Using the same pan, add the rest of the butter over a low heat
- Saute the mushrooms and garlic
- With scissors chop and drop in a sprig or two of rosemary into the the pan
- Only the mushrooms are cooked down, leave them to cool
- Once the mushrooms are cool, use a sieve to drain the excess liquid into a bowl – you want to keep this liquid for later
- At this point it’s decision time. Take a look at your lamb and decide if you will do one big one or 3 or 4 smaller. The best way to decide is based on the meat. We had three smaller piece of backstrap so did three individual wellingtons for ease.
- Heat the oven to 180C fan
- Once decided, roll out the puff pastry to half a cm thickness (if it’s not ready rolled) and cut it to be about 2.5 times the size of the lamb
- Melt the last q tsp of butter and spread this over the the pastry where it will be in contact with the lamb/ mushroom
- Spread the mushroom mix over the same area, then lay the lamb in the center
- Wrap it up and place it on a baking tray, with any joints at the bottom. In my view there’s no best way to do this. As long as it’s sealed and you don’t have too much overlap, your golden. Cut off any excess pastry
- If you fancy, you can create some patterns out of the leftover pastry and stick those on top with a little butter
- Beat the egg in a mug or small bowl and egg wash the wellington
- Place in the middle of the oven
- Bake for 20-30 minutes depending on how well done you like you lamb. If you have a meat thermometer you can use that to check
- While the wellington is cooking, make the gravy. For this, take the mushroom stock, meat juice from the plate and 200 ml of red wine and mix with the lamb stock
- Adjust with wine/ seasoning as required then use the flour to thicken
- Remove the lamb from the oven. Without a themometer there’s no perfect way to test, I usually cut it (or one of them) at the middway point to around 50% and see if we like the look. The ends will be more well done. If it’s not cooked, gently push the split 50% back together and return the over, covering with a bit of foil over that section if you have it to keep the juices in
- Serve with the gravy, some potatoes and vegetables of your choosing
The solo photo – apologies
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Notes
I can only apologies for the awful photos – we were staying in a very old property and the lighting was not the best to put it mildly. You’ll have to trust me that it tasted amazing and I hope your photos are less poor quality if you take any.