Ground Beef Wellington ( the humble version)

Name: Ground Beef Wellington
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 55 min
Total time: 70 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 1 onion; 1 carrot; 1 celery stick; 1 potato (medium); 2-3 cloves garlic; 5 mushrooms; 4 rosemary or thyme sprigs (leaves only); 2 tbsp olive oil; 80g/1/2 cup frozen peas; 1 lbs ground beef; 500g/17oz puff pastry; flour for rolling; salt and pepper to taste; 1 egg (beaten)

Learn to make an easy and inexpensive version of Beef Wellington and impress your friends and family.

What I am bringing to you today is a humble, speedy but no less delicious version of grand Beef Wellington.

What is Beef Wellington?

Traditionally Beef Wellington is prepared with a good cut of beef smothered in delicious mushroom duxelle and wrapped in flaky puff pastry. The dish is fit for a king.

However, our recipe calls for ground beef, which is much cheaper and less intimidating to work with.

While I’ve always wanted to make the “real” version I never seemed to be able to justify spending the money on the high priced chunk of beef.

When Jamie Oliver came up with this recipe I knew it would become a regular weeknight dinner option. It’s basically a dressed up meatloaf baked in puff pastry, which makes it immediately more appealing.

I think the puff pastry elevates this dish from a lowly, everyday meatloaf status to something rather special.

This tasty dish is a winner with everyone, from young to old. It’s beautiful and will make you look like you possess chef-like skills in the kitchen while it’s a breeze to make.

How do I make Beef Wellington?

Preheat your oven to 350F/180C and take your pastry out of the fridge to soften a bit. Peel onion, carrot and potato. Dice all the vegetables (except the peas!) into similar size pieces.

Put your frying pan on a medium heat with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and chop up your herbs. Squeeze the garlic through a garlic press or chop it up with a knife and throw them in the pan as well.

Gently saute everything stirring occasionally until your vegetables are tender and onions are translucent. It will take about 5-8 minutes. Then transfer your mixture into a bowl and cool completely.

Once it’s cooled enough to touch add your beef and peas to it. Here is your chance to play with your food-get into the bowl with your hands and start mixing everything together.

Then add salt and pepper and a half of your beaten egg, reserve the rest for the pastry.

If you are one of those people, who really doesn’t like to touch meat, I recommend buying kitchen gloves for instances like this. It’s really important to get into the mixture with your hands to ensure even distribution of all the nice bits plus it’s just fun!

Dust your clean work surface with a handful of flour and roll out your pastry to a 1/4 inch thickness or use an already rolled one!

Shape your beef mixture into a log and place it on your rolled out pastry sheet, brush the edges with the reserved egg.

Roll it up tucking the ends inside like a giant burrito, brush with the egg all over and place it on a baking sheet seam down.

Bake Beef Wellington in the preheated oven for 45 min to an hour depending on your oven until golden.

That’s what mine looked like…

What can I serve with Ground Beef Wellington?

Serve your Wellington with a simple green salad or this tomato and cucumber salad. You can also make this luxurious mushroom sauce if you feel like this dish needs a bit of gravy.

This recipe was originally published in 11/2012, updated in 02/2019.