Vegan Beet Wellington

Deep down this year’s Christmas main course is so lovely. Literally. Because our roast made from beetroot, lentils and nuts is not only coated with a delicious layer of mushrooms and chestnuts, but also with a layer of puff pastry. This way, no taste can escape and the roast stays nice and juicy inside. Of course, it also looks good. So it’s worth the work threefold. At least.

The role model for the dish is the classic Filet Wellington. A fillet of beef (initially probably even horse fillet) wrapped in a puff pastry coating with a duxelles (a very finely chopped mass of mushrooms). The name probably goes back to the first Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley. If you’re like us now and the name doesn’t ring a bell at all: he was the British military leader who defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo. So the dish was probably invented shortly after 1800.

Fortunately, more than 200 years later, everything is a little bit different. England is no longer fighting with France and we neither cook with horse nor beef. With us, a hearty vegan roast made from beetroot, lentils and nuts is the centerpiece. We are also adding chestnuts to the mushroom duxelles. So the dish tastes even more like winter and Christmas. A few spices shouldn’t be missing either. A no brainer. But that’s basically it.

The biggest work is chopping up the ingredients. If you have a really good food processor, you have a clear advantage here. If you (like us) only have a semi-good stand mixer or maybe just a hand blender at home, you should do the chopping in several stages. It takes a little longer, but it also works wonderfully. In theory, of course, it could also be done without any technical aids. Chopping by hand could well take another 200 years though.

After the preparation, the beetroot roast is briefly pre-baked and then the really beautiful handcraft begins. Put some mushroom duxelles on top of the puff pastry and then add the roast. This is then neatly wrapped with the remaining mushroom and chestnut mixture and finally covered with puff pastry.

If you’re smarter than us, you put the roast on the puff pastry rotated. In other words, the long side of the roast should be parallel to the shorter side of the puff pastry. Exactly the other way around than in the pictures. So in the end you won’t have any problems sealing the wellington. Unfortunately we only noticed afterwards. At least we can now tell you that the puff pastry can be stretched a little if necessary and small holes can be mended with leftover dough. 😉

We serve our vegan Filet Wellington with red cabbage with apple, oven baked brussels sprouts and our vegan gravy. Due to the puff pastry coating and the lentils in the roast, in our opinion you don’t necessarily need an additional side dish. Of course, mashed potatoes, bread dumplings or potato dumplings would also go wonderfully with it.