Affordable Luxury - Pork Wellington

So, you're having family round for a meal or hosting a dinner party with friends and want to impress but you don't want to break the bank, or your back for that matter...something simple, straightforward yet stunning, am I right? Well this one is definitely for you!

By adapting yee old traditional Beef Wellington (which will cost you an arm and a leg to cook properly) you can have a cost effective and absolutely delicious main meal.  Plus, for any of you out there with a dislike or intolerance to garlic, I've added some alternative tips to help you retain that flavour without it - winner, winner pork based dinner!

First, what your going to have to do is gather the troops, so to speak. Grab yourself a decent sized pork tenderloin (which can be picked up from between £3-5 amazingly!), a packet of puff pastry (if you want to be mega impressive, make your own), chestnut mushrooms, a small bottle of white wine (or a large one if you want to feed the pan and yourself), one packet of Parma ham and shallots. This is based on the assumption you will already have cupboard essentials like chicken stock, garlic, plain flour, eggs, salt and pepper - if you don't, grab these too!

To start, you will want to trim off all the "silverskin" on your pork tenderloin with a sharp knife. This is the whitey-silvery connective tissue (hence the name) which is found on most loin pieces, including beef. By leaving it on you risk granny losing her dentures...
Once trimmed, seal the loin in a hot pan for a few minutes and leave to cool.

Whilst the pork is cooling, make your mushroom duxcelle. A duxcelle is a finely chopped mushroom mix which is reduced to a paste and used as a pastry filling, stuffing or garnish. To make yours, you will want to finely chop your mushrooms (at least one packet of), a large handful of shallots and crush 2 cloves of garlic. Fry these in butter until soft then add chicken stock and a glug of white wine. Volumes will differ depending on how much duxcelle you are making but as a general rule, you want your combined liquid to just cover the dry ingredients in your pan in order to reduce down, forming a dry paste. Now, for those of you who wish to make a garlic free alternative, I've found using red onion and finely diced chorizo, instead of shallots and garlic, works a treat! Once ready, leave this to cool also.

Next up, assembly. The beauty of this dish is you can prepare it in advance, bringing it out only to cook on the night! You want to roll your puff pastry onto a clean, floured surface, making it 3 times the width of your pork, and about 1.5 times the length- giving you excess to roll. Place strips of Parma ham along the width of the pastry and then spread your duxcelle over the Parma ham. Plant your pork onto the edge of the Parma ham nearest you and roll away from you. Egg wash where pastry meets pastry- tucking both ends under too. Wrap the full 'log' in cling film and allow to rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour. (You will notice from my pictures, the first time I did this I wrapped the pork, Parma ham and duxcelle in cling film, chilled this in the fridge then removed the film and rolled in the pastry before cooking- you can do it either way but  having done this a couple of times, I would now recommend the method I've just described in order to have a consistent temperature throughout the pastry and inside ingredients).

When the time comes for dinner,  remove the wellington from the fridge and showcase your inner Picasso by decorating the top with any left over pastry you may have trimmed from the sides. You will see as I was on the run up to Christmas I placed holly leaves on mine. Egg wash the top now also and cook in a preheated oven at 180 degrees (fan oven) for approximately 35minutes. This pork will be served pink, but hot all the way through.

Finally, as sides, I served my wellington with homemade apple- cinnamon red cabbage and crushed potatoes but steamed veg or mashed turnip would go just as well.

Let me know how you get on with this one, and as ever- enjoy! x