Sunday Special
Either it's family day or dinner with friends, make this day special by cooking something you haven't tried before.
Minced Beef Wellington
Surely a crowd pleaser but very easy to make and don't get intimidated on how it looks as I can assure you that it's simple but delish! This is a Jaime Oliver dish but I changed the process a little bit. You can use any meat that you like, either pork mince or lamb mince. Be adventurous and probably use fish instead.
Ingredients
1 onion
1 carrot
1 red bell pepper
1 potato
----- finely chopped -----
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 tablespoon of oil (olive oil or whatever oil you prefer)
1 egg lightly beaten
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
a pinch of cumin and chili powder
500 grams of minced beef
salt and pepper to taste
Pastry
(I made my own pastry but you can use a puff pastry if you don't have time to make it.)
For the pastry
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tsp salt
2 sticks of unsalted butter(hard cold)
1/2 cup of very cold water
Procedure
Since I decided to make my own pastry, this is the one you have to make first. (But if you will use puff pastry it's ok and then just proceed to preheating your oven into 180C.)
You have to make your pastry first so it can rest while you prepare the rest of the dish.
Put you flour into a mixing bowl and mix the sugar and salt together.
Cut your very cold and hard butter into cubes(you really need it to be cold and not mushy or in room temperature) and put it in the flour and start rubbing them together with your finger tips. Another technique is you can use pastry cutter but I find it more quicker to do it with my fingers, just make sure you wash your hands first.
You have to use your fingertips to rub the butter with the flour and not your palm as the warmth of your palm will melt the butter and we don't want that.
When the butter and flour is completely mixed and you don't see any lumps, this will resemble into crumbs like, it is time to add the cold water and try bring them together by kneading inside the bowl and form in into a big dough ball. Wrap it with plastic wrap and rest it in the fridge.
I know you might be thinking I said it will be easy, but it's really easy, its just that the explanations are quite long, but as soon as you know how to do it, you know the techniques, this is the intructions that will form into your mind. A super short one.
Mix dry ingredients
Cube butter
Add butter to the dry ingredients
Rub with fingertips
Add water and mix to form a dough
Knead inside your bowl and wrap in cling film and chill.
Now, while the pastry is resting, it's time to prepare the minced beef.
By the way, if you are really in the mood to make your own pasty, you can make it ahead of time and just stored it in the fridge.
Put a little oil on your pan
Brown your mince beef and add garlic, onion and red bell pepper
cumin and chili powder
Saute them for 1 - 2 minutes until the onion and
red bell pepper soften and infused the flavor to your mince.
Add carrots, potato and simmer them for a couple of minutes
until carrots and potato are tender enough, but you don't want to over cook it
as it will still cook when you bake it.
And then add the tomato paste, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for another minute.
Transfer it into a shallow bowl to cool it down while you're preparing the pasty.
Now it's time to preheat your oven to 180C
Take the rested pastry out of the fridge and start rolling it thin.
You want to make it into big rectangle so you have plenty of space
to tuck in your minced beef
I recommend to put the mince in the middle of the pastry
so that you don't need to roll the whole thing (like how you make spring rolls) and get disappointed that your pastry breaks. So put the mince in the middle of the pastry
like a big sausage. Make sure you didn't include if there's any sauce
because it will make you pastry soggy.
Brush one side of the pastry with lightly beaten egg and
fold it on top of each other.
I also recommend that once you've rolled your pastry transfer it onto your baking tray
and fill it there so you don't need to move the whole thing and might break it.
If you have pastry off cuts, try and decorate the top to make it more pretty
then brush it with lightly beaten egg to give it the golden brown color.
Bake until you think the pastry is cook.
