The Quick And Easy Tip For Preventing A Soggy Beef Wellington Crust
A well-made beef Wellington is a luxurious dish that makes you feel very posh indeed when serving it or enjoying it as a guest. But it can be a little tricky to get that puff pastry crispy enough to get a lovely snap when you carve it and a flaky crunch on the first bite. Quite often, you end up with pastry that's soggy, which can take the wind out of the cook's sails when they have spent hours preparing this legendary dish. Luckily there are some awesome hacks to ensure that your pastry comes out like a crisp cloud, with your tenderloin soft and juicy inside.
Sogginess is caused by moisture that seeps from the meat or duxelles layer into the pastry casing. This excess moisture is absorbed by the pastry, stopping it from crisping up, and instead oozing into a soggy mess. The fix is to create an extra layer between the pastry and the meat-and-duxelles filling — a moisture barrier, if you will. The answer to that layer is phyllo.
Phyllo dough (or pastry) is super thin, built to hold moist fillings without leakage, and doesn't take anything away from the original beef Wellington flavors. Lay your puff pastry at the bottom and cover it with your layer of phyllo dough. Then carry on with your traditional layering of duxelles, with your tenderloin being the final layer. You could also include a layer of prosciutto after the phyllo, which adds flavor. Wrap, refrigerate to firm up the shape, then bake.
Other hacks – and a cool shortcut for mini Wellies
There are also other moisture barriers that you can use for your beef Wellington, though we reckon the phyllo option is best. Some consider the prosciutto to be a barrier in its own right, but the cured meat can hold moisture of its own so could add to the liquid load. You could cook up a crepe or thin pancake and use that as your extra layer, but crepes are rather delicate so may not be able to hold all the moisture expelled by the beef and duxelles. Pancakes also add more dough to the combination so could throw off your meat-to-dough ratio.
Another idea worth including is to brush the inside layer of your puff pastry with egg whites to seal the dough and prevent moisture from seeping through. This isn't always totally effective though as the volume of moisture may just be too much for the thin layer of egg white to handle. Also, you don't want to overdo the egg-white brush as it could influence the flavor of your beef Wellington.
So we say phyllo all the way. What's extra cool about phyllo is that if you're making mini beef Wellingtons — for a finger lunch, starters, or individual portions — you could actually ditch the puff pastry altogether and use just the phyllo as your pastry option. Use a couple of sheets with a spritz of cooking spray in between each, add some sliced prosciutto for flavor, then duxelles and meat, then bake as per the recipe.