$20 vs $200 Beef Wellington | With Babish

[00:06] personified. A dish just about as laborious, expensive, and fancy as it is actually worth making. So, in addition to a classic beef Wellington, I'm also for the rest of us, those without tax shelters and depreciating assets.

[00:21] Wellington that's much easier on your wallet and opens up the opportunities to wallet and opens up the opportunities to make lots of other stuff.

[00:49] Dairy, the new butter in my kitchen. Challenge, the butter with the elk use butter. They have these cubes in four tablespoon chunks so you can throw your baking, your finishing sauce. The convenience and quality of this stuff is

[01:02] worth it. Today, I'm using it in a number of ways. From the most important to the fillings to the sauce. For more info on challenge and find yourself some butter cubes, scan the QR code or head to the description. To conduct this

[01:14] experiment, I have two very different cuts of beef. This guy, a USDA choice I cuts of beef. This guy, a USDA choice I round roast, costed all of $18.15. The I round roast is one of the least desirable cuts of [music] beef I think

[01:30] desirable cuts of [music] beef I think in existence. It is tough and dry. So to make a Wellington out of this is an inadvisable idea. Then for the fancy butchers, Delip Pietress, here in Brooklyn, and I got a 30-day dry-aged

[01:44] [music] beef tenderloin. The 30-day dry importantly flavorful. It's going to impart all these cheesy [music] funky match the flavor, tenderness, and juiciness of this Chateau Brian that

[01:59] juiciness of this Chateau Brian that clocks in at exactly 10 times the price. >> What's the minimum net worth someone should have before attempting this dish? >> Well, I would say that um it's very similar to the question one has to ask

[02:12] for rent. You generally do not want to pay more than 30% of your income on rents [music] and you generally do not want to spend more than 30% of your income on Wellington. I think that's a tune we can all dance to. This dry-aged

[02:29] chateau bion I am treating simply [music] enough. Nothing but some good old-fashioned kosher salt all around the exterior of the beast. So I've wrapped this in plastic wrap. I'm placing this guy in a

[02:43] crosscontamination. And then I'm dry brining in the fridge for at least two days. All right, this guy spent two days in the fridge. The heat doesn't work in wearing a beanie to protect my delicate human skull from the cold. And [music]

[02:56] before wrapping and baking, turning him into Wellington. We need to towel this make sure that [music] there's zero moisture on the outside of this beef. oil in the bottom of that pan. I want it smoking hot. When I say smoking, I mean

[03:11] very literally. I want there to be smoke coming off that oil. You want to sear this over super high heat, refrigerator cold. Our goal here is only to put color on the outside of the roast. Beautiful. Look at that crust.

[03:25] Just going to skate it around in the fat a little bit. Look at that. Beautiful. Perfect crust all the way around. Exactly what I wanted. Not cooked at all. Like we didn't do any cooking here. We just

[03:37] to live. I'm going to let this uh cool off for just a few minutes before I put refrigerator cold when it goes into our Wellington. Next up, the ductel or a traditional mushroom pate. I have one pound of

[03:51] creini mushrooms here that I'm going to rinse. Yes, that's right, rinse. A lot of folk might tell you that if you rinse your mushrooms, you'll water log them. And that is not entirely true. Mushrooms, especially cremeni mushrooms,

[04:05] button mushrooms, contain a huge amount of water that is going to release as going to boil anyway. Now, the only chopping I'm going to do is chopping off the tough little woody ends of the mushrooms. Pound of mushrooms cleaned

[04:20] and trimmed. If you're ever wondering what's cleaned and trim means, here you but you [snorts] got a food processor. This is going to make quite literally short work of these mushrooms. Wholesome at first.

[04:33] circulates the mushrooms better so they get more chopped. Two minced shallots that I don't think I minced quite finely enough. Like I said, all this is going to boil basically, so we don't have to worry about uh burning those shallots.

[04:45] Nice finely chopped shallot mushroom mixture, which we're going to sauté straight away. Into that same cast iron pan goes one of our handy dandy challenge butter cubes. Each cube is four tablespoons, just about the right

[04:58] amount for this job. Let's add our mushrooms. These are going to take a while because all the moisture needs to cook out of them. Another way to speed lightly salt them. That butter is salted, too. So, I'm going to stop right

[05:10] there. I don't want to overseason. It's going to help draw out that moisture. Help these cook a lot faster. Look at all that water now. See? See what I said? Once it cooks off, all that's going to be left is mushrooms and butter

[05:23] and shallots in the pan. So, that's when it can start browning. You know, mushrooms are a lot like people in that they love thyme. Isn't there never enough thyme in your day? Well, mushrooms feel the same way. But I'm

[05:35] rosemary in there cuz they do like rosemary. Rosemary is a much stronger flavor than thyme. So, I'm just going to do a teaspoon of fresh thyme and 1/4 teaspoon of fresh rosemary, finely chopped. Now, at this stage, when

[05:47] I'm going to add the herbs. Might need a little liquid to release these off the bottom of the pan cuz see this this stuff right here? That is going to burn. I think it's time to flame. The safest way to do this, kill the heat. Add our

[06:01] way to do this, kill the heat. Add our bit of cognac. Light it up. You really don't need to do that. It's really just for show, but boy does it put on a show. And the only thing left to add is a/2 cup of heavy cream. This

[06:15] is going to thicken and tighten the pate. A little bit of salt. That's why this point cuz you see how much they've reduced by. And there is our mushroom tukel. I'm just going to spread this out so it cools as quickly as possible.

[06:28] Sandwich this parchment paper over top just to prevent it from ox oxidizing. Again, it's really no big deal and more color would not necessarily be a bad this, but this is going to cool completely. We don't want anything warm

[06:40] >> With the inflation we've been experiencing recently, what do you think this Wellington will be worth by the time of serving? [laughter] >> That's a very droll question to which I do not have the answer. The economy is a

[06:54] >> Me too, brother. >> All right, time for the hardest part of your day. Puff pastry, cuz it's expensive and you're living under the constant looming threat of ruining your entire dish. There there is one

[07:07] advantage to this. Normally, when you unwrap puff, if it's too cold, it'll crack at the folds. But this is so thawed that it should not be an [music] issue. We need to roll this out so that it's at least 4 in wider than the

[07:20] This guy I'm going to put back in the fridge until we're ready for it because we want everything to be as cold as possible at all times. Now, affair is held together using a crepe or

[07:32] Uh, this is to sort of hold everything together inside and also act as a moisture barrier between the meat and the puff. [music] That's definitely the classic and classiest way to go probably. But I like Jay Kenji Lopez

[07:45] Alt's move here, which is to [music] use a single sheet of Felo dough. We're now a single sheet of Felo dough. We're now going to shingle some slices of puto. [music] Before this uh filo gets too dry and cracked, we need to spread out our

[07:58] dukel. There we go. Now, all there is left to do is grab our beautiful [music] thoroughly brush it down with Dijon mustard. Now, we're going to very

[08:10] carefully, a little bit at a time, start rolling this sucker up. Use the plastic rolling this sucker up. Use the plastic wrap. Use the table to pull it super wrap. Use the table to pull it super tight. Now we're going to fridge for

[08:23] it in the puff. Okay, we have our plastic wrap down. Place our puff [music] pastry on it. I'm going to brush the inside of this in hopes that it's going to create less of a gap between it and the roast. So

[08:38] that's where it meets right there. I'm going to snip off the excess. stretch and pinch the dough. Doesn't have to be pretty because it's going face down. Pressing the sides almost like you're wrapping a a gift. Wrap it

[08:52] in the plastic wrap like so. Now, this tight little baggage is ready to go in the fridge for 1 hour. Time to try something I've never done before. That is make a pastry lattice and use this specialized tool, a lattice cutter.

[09:07] We're going to hold it and press on. And that should leave us with a decorative [snorts] lattice work. So let's unwrap our tightened little parcel here. Give it a thorough brushing with our beaten egg.

[09:22] Going to grab our lattice, drape it on top. Trim off the errant ends, leaving some that I can sort of tuck underneath. I've never made one of these before. And darned if it isn't classy as all get out. There you have it, a lattised beef

[09:38] Wellington. That is looking nice and super duper [music] Anglican if you ask me. I'm going to put this in the fridge to let it set. Otherwise, these uh slide all over the place. So, we'll put this in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

[09:53] And we're going to take it out and damn it, we're going to bake it. The time for chilling is over. Brush this down again with egg. Last but not least, we got to hit it with some flaky finishing salt. 25 to 45 minutes depending on the size

[10:07] and thickness your oven, the humidity, your the mood your mom is in today. Just you can. >> Beef Wellington is traditionally served medium rare. Why isn't it called beef mid rarington?

[10:22] >> Look, I have no idea where the name beef Wellington even came from, and I know that that that is categorically stupid. >> That's fair. Some juices and butter has leaked out, but we have ourselves a complete beef

[10:36] Wellington. All right, that's getting at least 15 minutes to chill before I even think about cutting anything. Let's take a look. Oh yeah, roy medium rare. You a look. Oh yeah, roy medium rare. You can see how just freaking insanely juicy

[10:51] can see how just freaking insanely juicy that is. Garnish with some parsley. Oh, it's all tender and crispy and wonderful.

[11:03] Wellington many, many times. I've only made it twice myself. So, to make it good as you remember it from the restaurant, that should be illegal. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to make a $20 [music] piece of beef taste

[11:18] For now, though, I have some dinner [music] guests upstairs that are thing. So, I'm going to go do that, and I'll see you in a little bit.

[11:50] >> Babish cookware. Swear to me you'll only use it for good. An inexpensive Wellington seems a bit odd. Isn't the whole point for it to be elitist and exclude poor people? >> No.

[12:05] >> I don't know. It's called Beef Wellington. It just sounds like it's wearing [music] an ascot. You know, >> anyone can wear an ascot. money works. So, [music] let's take a look at our $18 roast. The only thing I

[12:21] want to do is normalize it a little bit. that it gets very skinny toward the end here. Try to even out this facade. There we go. It's a little bit more circular, a little bit more believable. So, I'm making a 50/50 mixture of kosher

[12:37] salt and ground cooji rice. This over the course of 2 days is basically going to perform a speedy [music] cheaters dry age. This is a great way to make cheaper cuts of beef taste horribly expensive. I'm also [music] going to brush the

[12:50] whole roast down with a mixture of equal parts soy sauce and fish sauce. umami bammy. All right. So now I'm going to brush this guy down with our mixture of soy sauce and fish sauce. Screw brushing. What are we doing? What is

[13:04] brushing. What are we doing? What is this? The cyine chapel koji and salt this? The cyine chapel koji and salt mixture all over. mixture all over. Okay, that already looks oddly

[13:16] beautiful. So now this guy's headed into the fridge uncovered for 2 days. 2 days later and here's what it's going to look like. Definitely dried out a bunch. to rinse off all this koji. We don't want any of the actual cooji rice on

[13:29] there. Upon looking at this in the sober light of day, I feel like it's too big. too wide. [music] I want it to be really nice and perfectly round. So I'm just going to very carefully just kind of We've got flavor addressed. So now we

[13:42] need to address tenderness. And that means only one thing with a cut of beef this cheap and this tough and this dry, and that's sousied. And I'm going to I've ever sueded anything. I've got my

[13:54] sousvid set to 130° Fahrenheit, wherein this beef is about to become a long-term resident for 24 hours. This is going to be enough time to tenderize and basically gel the muscle fibers, turning it into something that's hopefully as

[14:07] it into something that's hopefully as tender as file. Sousid, chamber sealers, cooji. Are you sure this Wellington is accessible? >> You're right. This recipe [music] calls for some very specialty tools and

[14:19] ingredients. All of which when added together will still cost less than an average [music] chat bion. So even though you're having to shell out to make [music] the base recipe, then you're left with a suvid and cooji and

[14:34] other nice things that you can put to use for the [music] rest of your life. are some great store-bought options like Duour. This is an all [music] butter it's made with shortening which makes it vegan. That's fun. Not really useful in

[14:48] this context, but makes it vegan. So then the question becomes, do we make puff pastry? This stuff is expensive, about $10. And we could probably save half that price by making it ourselves at the cost of a scant 12 hours of

[15:01] effort. First up, we have to make our butter square. I have 450 g of challenge butter. Going with salted butter just to add another layer of seasoning there. and about a half cup of flour plus about two tablespoons of red miso. This is

[15:14] add flavor. It's going to add color. And brown more quickly. 2 tablespoons worth. I'm making a double batch of puff here, just going to mix this gently until everything's smooth and evenly

[15:27] incorporated. I'm going to try to coax it into a square. I want probably a say it into a square. I want probably a say 8 to 10 by 8 to 10 in square. Now, this least 30 minutes, probably an hour. I want it to be nice and firm, but not

[15:43] rock hard. Now, for the lean dough, which is the dough that ensconces the very lean at all, because I'm going to try this method from King Arthur flour, wherein treats the lean dough as a pie dough with cold butter broken in

[15:56] throughout. You got 510 g [music] of allpurpose, 4 tablespoons worth of butter, cold out of the fridge, about a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt. Bust [music] flattening them and breaking them up into little pieces. Press them

[16:11] out flat and just let them break up into little flakes. Calls for 284 g of ice cold water. Now, this guy needs to be formed into a rough dough. Make sure you get all that flour incorporated. No dry flour remaining.

[16:27] Try to shape it into a square. I just want to get it out to roughly the same size as our butter square. It's looking like a square to me. All right, let's wrap it up and put it in the fridge. Little uneven, little lumpy,

[16:43] but looking pretty good, just like me. Oh, uh um fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour. 45 minutes later, we have ourselves some more flexible ready to be dough. So, I want to get this out to like 14 by 14.

[17:00] Now, the butter should be firm, but shouldn't break when bent. It should just bend. So, that's actually in the perfect spot. Let's yank off this parchment paper. There we go. Butter square right in the

[17:14] center. Our beautiful miso butter. Make sure that there's no errant flour cuz we want this lean dough to stick to the butter square. We don't want there to be

[17:26] a gap in between them. Fold these corners in like so. Get it nice and tight. I'm [music] going to pinch it together right at the seam. Time to roll this out a little bit. And we want it to be about as twice as long as it is wide.

[17:42] like a letter. Now we're going to do the second turn. We have three layers of feel like it's getting warm, it should everything should be very cold to the warming up or it's getting, you know, a

[17:56] little sticky, get it back in the fridge, everything needs to be kept nice and cold at all times. Don't stretch. Don't ever stretch. Whatever you do, you want to you want to position these folds so that you're not stretching the dough.

[18:11] You're just folding it over. And there is the first two turns of our miso puff pastry. Back into the fridge for 20 minutes. 20 minutes. Time for another minutes. 20 minutes. Time for another pair of turns. 81 layers of butter now

[18:26] pair of turns. 81 layers of butter now are in this little packet of promise. Another uh 20 minutes in the fridge. The final two turns. Six turns in total. So now with this fifth fold, we're going into 243 layers of butter.

[18:45] puff pastry. Now it's going to spend night in the fridge before we even think about doing anything Wellingtonian to it. Let this be a potent and painful reminder that not unlike pasta dough,

[18:59] puff pastry dough will start to oxidize in the fridge in as little as 48 hours, leaving you with something gray, slimy, or perhaps most cruy, speckled because it looks kind of delicious. Let's make another one. Here we go. Challenge.

[19:14] demonstrate how if you don't have a stand mixer and you want to make a butter block, easy peasy. All you need is your butter, your flour, and a rolling pin. Shouldn't have done that. [music]

[19:27] butter together until it's one uniform block. Slowly incorporating the flour. That's all there is to it. Oh, I almost forgot to incorporate the miso. In fact, what I'll do is I'll just kind of paint that on. Spread and

[19:41] that on. Spread and fold it in. Also, if you're going to use me, so use use a stand mixer. This is a fool's errand to to get this in here at this stage. God knows I'm going to do it cuz who do you who do you get to run a

[19:55] I'm putting this in the stand mixer. [laughter] and I'm going to try something a little different. I'm going to use half allpurpose half bread flour, which I'm hoping is going to strengthen things

[20:09] because the pastry on the last Wellington almost blew out in the last 10 minutes of cooking. So, I'm going to roll that a little thicker and I want it to be a little bit more structurally sound. 24 hours later, 26 if I'm being

[20:23] honest. And here comes our I round roast out of the sousvid. And it looks to put this guy in an ice bath to cool it off fast before I put it in the it off fast before I put it in the fridge to cool completely overnight.

[20:38] Okay. This guy's had the night to rest in the fridge. Now, we must put him to work. So, now I'm going to do an initial roll out cuz it's just so thick. So, I'm going to try to roll it out to roughly the thinness of store-bought puff. I'm

[20:52] can cut it into two pieces. All right, this guy's going to go back in the fridge and rest before I roll them out any further. Now on to the dukel. And this time I'm using a 50/50 mix of cremeni and shiakei mushrooms. The

[21:05] shiakeis are going to bring a much stronger, more savory flavor. Four large shallotss here that I've properly finely minced. Get some nice caramelization on there. Let's crush in four cloves of garlic. Let's add our

[21:18] mushrooms along with a hefty pinch of salt. This so I'm going to season it pretty liberally. Same procedure as last time. Cooked down the mushrooms, delazed inflamed with cognac, added heavy cream,

[21:33] pepper. But this time I added a half teaspoon each anchovi paste and Marmite. Both huge sources of natural glutamase. So what does that make it taste like? That tastes like at the very least it was made with beef stock. Letting cool

[21:49] completely before putting to good use. Now for the main event, our sousie eye round roast. But now we need to sear it. All right, oil's smoking. Let's lay it down. Oh, it's so rigid. Make sure it's

[22:03] getting plenty of fat exposure here. All right, nicely browned all over. Now, we're going to put it back in the fridge. Let it cool back down to fridge temperature. All right, 45minut rest. Let's start rolling out our puff. Let's

[22:18] trim this down into a much more respectable rectangle. This one is just for decor. So, doesn't really matter if we have nice hard edges on this one.

[22:30] There we go. Insulate them with a sheet of parchment. All right. Yeah, it's covered. Sweet. Back in the fridge. All right. Now, we got to do that annoying thing again where we shingle down pidto that does

[22:42] not want to be shingled. Pidto is a nightmare. It is a waking nightmare. And need to put down a crepe or a sheet of filo or anything because this roast is already cooked, so it's it shouldn't expel any more juices, hopefully. I

[22:57] mean, in theory, that's really tighten things up. All right, now this guy's headed back into the fridge to firm up. About 30 minutes. Okay, here we go. I'm going to give this guy a light brushing on the inside. All right,

[23:11] on the inside. All right, pull it nice and taut. Just cut right pull it nice and taut. Just cut right along here. Pinch and press. Make sure that nobody blows out their bottom. And God willing, that's going to work. There

[23:25] we go. Good and taut. This guy's going in the fridge. Meanwhile, we can design our lattice. And I hated that lattice cutter. I surely did. So, where we're lattice. So, I'm going to use cookie cutters. That way, we can use do any

[23:39] shapes we want. Try to make as clean cuts as possible. Well, it's definitely not super pretty, but let's see if it takes us there. Let's give it our initial brush down. There we go. There we go. There we go. There we go. There

[23:53] we go. Okay, those are way too big, but whatever. [laughter] There ain't no fixing it now. That looks very, very silly. Let's do a smaller square inside of each or star. Let's do a star. I'm going to Wellington the way that I want

[24:07] to. All right, that's that's that's ridiculous, but you know, so am I. Takes after its daddy. I think that this would win a [music] county bake off without breaking a sweat. I don't know about this one, guys, but uh I'm going for it.

[24:21] So, say your [snorts] prayers cuz it's going into the oven. >> I'm not so sure this Wellington is going to go so well. [laughter]

[24:52] thought it was going to look horrendous, but it doesn't look that bad. I mean, it but it doesn't look that bad. I mean, it looks a little melted. Yes. Here we go.

[25:09] It's so juicy. Oh my god. I think it might have worked. There you have it, folks. Our $20 beef Wellington. Let's see if it even holds a candle. The real thing. I should be able to cut it with a butter knife. Oh yeah, it's tender. over

[25:23] butter knife. Oh yeah, it's tender. over lips and through the gums of N.

[25:39] I don't believe it. The beef is so tender. It's not like The beef is so tender. It's not like crazy juicy, but it's not dry either. Wa wa. The beef, no joke, tastes slightly

[25:53] dry-aged. Like, it's got that slight funk, that almost like a sweetness to it. It's incredible. I cannot believe that this was what's in New York City, a $20 piece of meat. Anywhere else might be 10. It's been a long time since I've

[26:08] used SUV to tenderize really tough cuts of beef. And I forgot how magic it is. This has the exact same consistency as that fillet. I don't believe how juicy, how tender, and how flavorful this is. This very nearly didn't happen several

[26:20] times over. I oxidized my pastry the night before leaving for Florida. I started wrapping and shooting and and cooking this [snorts] in the hours before I had to leave for my flight. And I need to leave like now,

[26:34] but it all came together. It all came together. I'm going to cry. It wait to put the recipe on the website. Can't wait for you guys to try it. At

[26:46] the end of many videos, I say I hope you give this a try. But with this one, I really mean it because unlike most recipes, this one involves an investment in yourself and your hobby. Not only will you be able to make an incredible

[27:00] high-end dish, but it will open up a whole host of culinary possibilities for you. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope no matter what form it takes, you find a way to invest in yourself and your

[27:14] way to invest in yourself and your hobbies because I promise you, you're worth it. I know that we just ended on a weirdly sappy [music] note for an episode about Beef Wellington, but I'm feeling weirdly

[27:26] sappy right now. Deal with it. I love you. Deal with it. sponsoring this episode. I have loved working with Challenge this year. [music] dairy farmers are in California and all the butter is made in

[27:40] is no more than 48 hours. The convenience and quality of this stuff is Challenge is perfectly portioned and ready to be grabbed for your next kitchen project. Think holiday [music] side dishes, festive baking, and slow

[27:53] Challenge and to find yourself some butter cubes, scan the QR code or head to the description. What purpose does wrapping your meat actually serve? I always thought it was more fun with nothing in between.

[28:07] >> Indeed, it is more fun to have no barrier betw twix your meat and what the meat's going into. [music] But not unlike the entandra that you're clearly making, having no layer of protection can cause some unintentional

[28:24] protection can cause some unintentional discharge. [music]