Mince wellington

Mince wellington

Thursday night’s new recipe was every bit as delicious as it looked if not even more! This mince wellington recipe came from the October issue of Recipes Plus and is yet another example of the fantastic, quick, healthy and easy recipes they provide every month.

Like many of my other recipes, this one starts with onion sauteing so I left that picture out this time.

Crowded mushrooms

Remove the onion from the pan and add mushrooms. I wasn’t really listening to Julia Child’s ‘don’t crowd the mushrooms’ advice on this one and they did steam a little.

Shriveled mushrooms

But 15 minutes later they were shriveled cooked to perfection ready for the next step.

Antique herb press

I used my grandma’s very very old herb press to chop my parsley for this recipe. It’s at least 60 years old. They don’t make things to last like that anymore do they!?

Make up the mix mixture according to the recipe then it’s time to wrap it up.

Ready for wrapping

Place the mustard, then mushrooms then mince mixture in the middle of a sheet of pastry. The next step in the recipe is to top this with half a sheet of pastry. As I was only making 2/3 of the recipe I left this step out and started wrapping.

Tuck him in

Wrap him up

Flip and score

Then it’s baking time. Brush your Wellington with milk and place in a pre-heated 200C/180C fan-forced oven for about 40minutes.

Yum!

Serve with steamed veges and enjoy. My veges were a little boring but all you need with this tasty pastry.

Mince wellingon

serves 6, 225 calories per serve (excluding salad or veges)

2 tsp oil

2 medium brown onions finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (I used minced garlic from the jar)

200g button mushrooms, sliced

500g lean beef mince

1/2 cup soft fresh breadcrumbs (I used oats as I was out of breadcrumbs and too lazy to make some)

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

2 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tsp dried oregano leaves

1 1/2 sheets frozen low-fat puff pastry

1 tbs low fat milk

steamed veges (or salad) to serve

Heat the oil and saute the onions until soft then add the garlic and stir until fragrant. Remove from the pan.

Cook the mushrooms and remaining garlic until the liquid evaporates. The recipe says 10 minutes but mine took about 15.

Pre-heat your oven to 200C/180C fan-forced and line a baking tray with baking paper. A trick I learned a little while ago is to put a sheet of alfoil under your baking paper. This eliminates having to clean the tray.

Combine mince, onion mix, breadcrumbs, egg, parsley, half the mustard and oregano and season with salt and pepper.

Lay out a single sheet of pastry and spread the remaining mustard in the middle of the sheet. Spread the mushroom on top of the mustard then shape your mince into a loaf on top. Place the half sheet of pastry over the top then fold the sides up to enclose your filling, pressing the edges to seal.

Carefully place the loaf (seam sides down) on the baking tray, score a few diagonal slits in the top to let out the steam, brush with milk and bake for about 40 minutes or until the pastry is golden and mince is cooked – that’s a bit of a guesstimate but mine was perfectly cooked in that time.

Note – I would probably let the mushrooms cool a little before putting them in the pastry next time. They ‘melted’ the pastry and led to a near disaster when I moved it from the chopping board to the oven tray.

Serve with a steamed veges and enjoy!