Nettle and Wild Garlic Beef Wellington -

This Nettle and Wild Garlic Beef Wellington Recipe is possibly one of my all-time favourite recipes. Most recipes call for beef sirloin but if you have a decent local butcher you can usually get away with using a standard beef joint (much cheaper)

Ingredients:

Beef Joint – 500g
500g pre-made puff pastry
250g chestnut mushrooms – finely chopped
2 onions – finely chopped and diced
250 wild mushroom – I used dryads saddle (if you don’t have wild just double up on chestnut mushroom
100g nettle – finely chopped
100g wild garlic – finely chopped
a knob of butter

Click here for a foraging guide for Wild Garlic

Click here for a foraging guide for Nettles

Method:

Heat up a pan on the stove until it’s smoking hot
Brown the beef on each side in the super-hot pan – about 1 minute each side
Place on an oven tray and bake in the oven for 25 minutes gas mark 7 or 180C
Remove from the oven and leave to chill on the side

Whilst the meat is cooling…..

Melt a knob of butter in the same pan you used to brown the meat (reusing the juices)
fry off the mushrooms and onion until fully browned, about 10 minutes
Add the finely diced nettles and cook for a further 5 minutes
Remove from the heat and place in a wide bottom bowl to cool

Let that cool and….

Blend the wild garlic to a smooth paste

Bringing it all together….

Layout the puff pastry on the non-stick paper
Place the cooled beef on top of the puff pastry in the centre
Spread the wild garlic paste over the top of the beef as layer 1
Next spread the cooled mushroom and nettle over the top of the garlic paste (try to cover the sides as well)
Fold the puff pastry over the top of the beef and fold in the sides so that the beef is fully covered
Bake the whole lot in the oven for 45 minutes at gas mark 8 or 180C