Beef Wellington
Birthday dinner for a friend: beef wellington, french onion mac n' cheese, pumpkin pie. featured in this episode: my friend who doesn't eat vegetables LOL
Ryan Nordheimer•
October 31, 2025
October 1st is my friend Matt’s birthday. Last year, we celebrated by going out to dinner at Quality Meats. I brought a funfetti cake. I think you know by now how that night ended. As we were leaving the restaurant, we all laughed to each other and aligned that the restaurant ate half of Matt’s birthday cake. Oh well, toss it to Matt’s bad luck. I guess the next day I was feeling a little cheeky and ended up posting what would become my most viral TikTok ever. It was a video style I almost never post: centered on story-telling & drama without any recipe or cooking involved. I didn’t really know how it would be received. I honestly thought it wouldn’t “hit the algorithm” and the video would end up barely reaching 10k views. A swing and miss but at least I tried.
What ended up happening was quite a bit different. Within an hour, I noticed really emphatic and genuinely perturbed people commenting on my TikTok absolutely roasting the restaurant. Someone connected the cake to Quality Meats (I didn’t name them in my video out of respect), and that comment got upvoted to top comment. I went to bed a little giddy, not entirely knowing what would happen the next day, but pretty confident I just hit a virality nerve on the internet. The next day the video received close to 10 million views. On a video that was almost 3 minutes long—so long Instagram wouldn’t even support me posting it at the time. People started to make TikToks about my TikTok, flaming the debate. Someone posted a 10-minute long YouTube video investigation. I got over a dozen media requests for interviews. The only one I ended up taking was the TODAY show because the reporter seemed vested in getting the whole story.
Matt found the whole thing hilarious. That TODAY show reporter actually told me something that I believe to be true. If this story was about any other food or dessert, nobody would care. But for birthday cakes, the internet will wage war.
So it’s a year from that moment. I was considering making the same birthday cake again. But I still feel like I need to give that cake a little air. Instead, I focused on Matt’s true obsession: meat.
Matt loves steak, actually all protein for that matter. And he hates vegetables so much my friends and I have a shared album entitled “Matthew not eating his veggies again :(”, wherein we post uneaten vegetables that Matt left abandoned on his dinner plate (it’s currently up to 17 photos, and we started over the summer). Other of Matt’s favorites include: French food, bougie sushi i.e. omakase, potatoes, pasta, and broccoli. He’s also allergic to coconut, if anyone is interested.
A lot of those favorites felt like supporting actors. I knew I had to focus on the steak. And I did promise my friends when I hit 500k Instagram followers that I would make them a beef Wellington. So that felt like the only main appropriate for the occasion. We’re lining up for Thanksgiving, so I thought I would make a few other autumnal things to round out the menu. A pumpkin pie with salted maple whipped cream (which Matt happens to love), and a bussin’ French onion mac n’ cheese (which everyone happens to love).
I aced the cook on this Wellington. This was the fourth one I’ve ever made. I highly suggest you use a oven probe; it removes all the guess-work. For perfect rare/medium-rare, aim for 115F and let the dish rest for 15 minutes out of the oven. That’ll ensure the juices don’t run too.
Happy birthday Matt,
Ryan
Hey! My name is Ryan Nordheimer. Welcome to my cooking and baking site. I’m a 25-year old home cook living in the East Village in New York City. Hopefully you enjoy my food through my own, tried-and-true recipes.
Ingredients (15)
Ingredients (15)
Instructions
Preheat a large Dutch oven or stainless steel pan over medium-high heat. Season your beef (3 lb) with kosher salt and black pepper. Pat completely dry with paper towels.
Add 1 tbsp neutral oil to the pan, once it’s hot carefully lay your beef in and press down to ensure good contact.
Sear on 2 or 3 sides until well-browned, about 2 minutes per side.
Remove to a plate. Brush the mustard (¼ cup) all over the beef and set aside.
In a food processor, add the mushrooms (16 oz), shallots (1), and garlic (2 cloves). Pulse until it’s very finely chopped.
Heat the pan back over medium-high and add the butter (2 Tbsp). Once the butter is foamy, add the mushroom mixture. Season with salt and pepper.
Cook, stirring occassionally, until the mushrooms are sticking to pan and turning brown, 8-10 minutes.
Add the wine (¼ cup) and cook out until it’s evaporated. Remove the mushrooms to a plate to cool.
Lay a large sheet of plastic wrap out onto your kitchen counter (it should be a few inches longer on either side than the length of the tenderloin). Lay a rectangle of your bresaola (12 oz) (or other meat) onto the plastic wrap; it should be the same length as your tenderloin.
Spread your mushroom mixture overtop with an offset spatula or spoon.
Place your tenderloin at the top of the rectangle. Using the plastic wrap to help you, roll the tenderloin over the remainder of the mushroom/cured meat, completely encasing it. Secure the ends of the plastic wrap and roll it a few times on your countertop to roll the log up taut.
Place in the fridge to chill, at least 30 minutes or up to 1 day.
Preheat your oven to 400 °F.
Generously flour your countertop, place your puff pastry (14 oz) on top and flour it too. Roll the pastry out until it’s longer than your tenderloin by about 1 - 1.5” inches on either side and about 12” deep.
Remove your tenderloin from the fridge. Remove it from the plastic wrap and place at the top of the pastry. Roll the pastry and tenderloin down the dough to encase it. Rest it on its seam. Tuck the two ends of excess pastry under each side to seal off the ends.
Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Confidently lift your Wellington like a baby onto the baking sheet. Beat your egg (1) and brush it all over the Wellington.
Use the tip of a paring knife to score a pattern onto the dough without puncturing it. Cut 3 small vents on the top of the dough. Season the dough with some flaky sea salt.
Chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.
Insert an oven probe into one of the ends of the Wellington if you have one. Bake the Wellington until the oven probe or a cooking thermometer registers 115 °F for medium-rare and the puff pastry is golden brown.
Remove from the oven and let rest for at least 15 minutes.
Then cut the Wellington into slices (marvel at it for a few moments) and serve with Dijon mustard (¼ cup).
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