Minced Beef Wellington and French Potatoes

I always wanted to do a wellington, ideally I would of rather done a fillet beef one. But it's so expensive now a days to buy such a big cut of fillet, and then cook it in pastry? Nah i would rather eat as nice big chunky steaks . So doing it with mince still gives me the challenge. Well you could call a giant Cornish pasti maybe or even a pie that looks like a sausage , that's the truth behind after all. Well it turned out nice, w all enjoyed it eating it and the best part of all , I enjoyed cooking it.

Minced beef Wellington

Ingredients

500g puff pastry
500g mince
1 cup peas
1 big carrot
1 onion
2 celery sticks
2 cloves of garlic
a handful of chestnut mushrooms
2 small potatoes
Fresh Rosemary finely chopped
Plain flour for dusting
Seasoning
2 eggs


Preparation time: up to an hour
Cooking time : 1 hour
Total time : 2 hours
Serves : 5-6
level: Medium/hard

Method

I chopped my vegetables all very finely. This will determine your cooking time. So you want to make sure this is cooked all over and nice and soft. So try to do your best with the chopping. I'm no chef, so i don't really have excellent skills but I do manage to do it quite well.
Add some oil to the pan. Add all your veggies and chopped rosemary except the peas.I think rosemary is and essential herb here. It gives a nice flavour. Well it is my favorite herb and I use in most of my dishes, it's so easy to grow , so I have it in my garden. Fry them on a low flame until soft and lightly browned. Add the peas and leave it to cook for another minute or two. Take off the heat and put in a bowl, leave it cool for an hour or so, it need to be completely cool before you wrap it up in the pastry. Otherwise your pastry won't hold at all it will collapse.
When it's completely cool mix the mince to the mixture and a beaten egg. Now you need to stick your hands in and combine the mixture. You could use a spoon but it doesn't work as good as your hands I'm afraid. Leave to one side for a minute until you roll the pastry out an a clean surface . You need it big enough to fit in all your mixture, and to fit in your baking dish. It needs to look a bit like a rectangle. Bring the longest side of the pastry right in front of you. With a brush go around it with the beaten egg. This will work like glue. Now on the edge in front of you get the mixture and put it down in a sausage shape. Roll it out with the pastry to the other end. Like rolling a pin forward, make sure you close the ends tightly. Bake in a preheated oven 180 degrees for an hour , on a low shelf. It needs to go nice and brown .

Baked French Potatoes

Ingredients

4-5 potatoes
1-2 onions
3 garlic cloves
Mixed herbs (dried)
olive oil
Vegetable stock
Seasoning

Total time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Serves : 4-5
Level : easy

Method

Slice you onion and garlic and with a tsp of mixed herbs in , fry very gently for 5-6 minutes. This will give you time to peel and slice your potatoes. Slice them quite thin and try to get them the same thickness all over. Get a small dish but big enough to fit all your potatoes, I used a small tart dish. Plus it looks nice even when served on the table. I like to leave it in the middle so everyone can help themselves . Start with covering the bottom of the dish with potatoes, and then sprinkle some of the onion mixture. You want to layer it like lasagna sort of it, a layer of each, top layer will be potatoes. Cover the potato mixture with hot stock. Seal with some foil and in the oven for 40 minutes covered. Take out and remove the foil and in for another 30 minutes.
Use 180 degrees preheated oven and top shelf.

Note: You want to put the potatoes in the oven at least 15 minutes before the wellington. As they might take longer to brown. But remember this is only guidelines as different oven and appliances may vary . I served mine with some steamed broccoli and cauliflower.