In honor of International Chef’s Day (October 20), we are kicking off a new blog series – Recipe for Success. This series will highlight Proof of the Pudding’s diverse and talented chefs with each post featuring one of our chefs, a culinary tale and a special recipe. We are kicking off the series with our founding chef, Chef Vagn, and his famous Open-Faced Beef Wellington.
The Story Behind the Recipe
I created this recipe a couple of years ago when Proof of the Pudding was hosting Leading Caterers of America for a three day convention in Atlanta.
One of the nights was a sit-down dinner at the Biltmore and the theme was The Great Gatsby, so the menu was to reflect that time in culinary history. My inspiration came from the traditional dish, Beef Wellington. I put a twist on the original ingredients and made the change of stacking the ingredients rather than the traditional way of baking the tenderloin inside a puff pastry. My rendition was then served with Sauce Beauminiere, which was a sauce I learned to make when apprenticing back home in Copenhagen (which is now home to the two best restaurants in the world).
As a result, the innovation Open-Faced Beef Wellington won an Allie Award that year for “Most Creative Dish”. In addition to the honor and memory of winning that so special award, it also brought back some very special memories of the entire conference where Proof served three days full of creative food with innovation service.
The Recipe
- One slice of well-seasoned roasted beef tenderloin cooked to your liking (in my case medium rare).
- The dish is served on a spaghetti squash cake – for the perfect spaghetti squash cake, do the following:
- Oven roast half a spaghetti squash.
- Season with thyme, salt, pepper and garlic.
- After roasting, mix the spaghetti treads with a diced sautéed onion, a couple of eggs, and a few breadcrumbs.
- Scope the squash on a hot greased baking dish and bake in the oven for approx. 15 min at 350 degree.
- The beef is then topped with a ragout of sautéed mushrooms.
- Mushrooms are cooked in a heavy cream and seasoned with salt, pepper and rosemary (almost like a good rich mushroom soup).
- At last, the dish is topped with a puff pastry lid.
- Which is puff pastry cut round with a cookie cutter and baked for approx. 15 minutes at 350 degree.
- Serve with any kind of additional vegetables you may like.
