Tag: Turkey Wellington

Thanksgiving is around the corner and I wanted to come up with an alternative to the traditional roasted turkey. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good, tender roasted turkey and I have a great recipe for one but it’s also fun to mix it up a bit.

I wanted to come up with a recipe that would combine several of our Thanksgiving favorites into one dish. I decided to experiment with a kind of Turkey Wellington. The idea was to wrap a boneless turkey breast in cranberry stuffing and then wrap it in puff pastry. A take on a classic Beef Wellington.

Beef Wellington was first created in England many, many years ago. It is a classic dish that my mother would prepare for the holidays. Classic Beef Wellington is made with Filet Mignon, Mushrooms, Prosciutto and Puff Pastry. It is absolutely delicious and I will be sharing my Mom’s recipe at a later date. It is a great dish to serve on Christmas or Christmas Eve.

I wanted to come up with a Thanksgiving all-in-one dish and I loved the idea of wrapping the Turkey Breast in puff pastry. Kind of like wrapping a delicious flaky biscuit around turkey. Instead of mushrooms I put a layer of stuffing which I mixed with dried cranberries. I let the dried cranberries simmer in the chicken broth to soften before mixing in the dried cubed bread. I really don’t want you to be intimidated by this recipe. You can absolutely use a store bought stuffing mix like Pepperidge Farm or you can make your own. I wanted this dish to come together fairly easily and look fantastic on your Thanksgiving table.

So I went to the supermarket across the street from my apartment and they did not have the puff pastry I was looking for so I decided to buy a box of pie pastry. You can absolutely use ready made pie pastry for sweet or savory dishes. I did roll it out a little so the pastry would fit around my Turkey Breast. I also decided to use Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix in a bag. I happen to love this stuffing, as did my mom. Of course we would also make homemade stuffing every Thanksgiving but there is something absolutely delicious about this mix in a bag. So we would make both. The other thing I would like to mention is that this beautiful fancy looking dish is very affordable. The total of all my ingredients was just over $30. The recipe can feed 6 people so you are looking at a cost of $5 per person. You can serve the Turkey Wellington with some gravy and sautéed string beans on the side or whatever side you like and you have a beautiful meal to serve your friends and family.

It is important to chill the turkey for a half hour after you wrap it in the stuffing. This will make it easier for you to wrap it in the puff pastry. Please make sure that you buy puff pastry and NOT phyllo dough. The two are similar but are not the same. Phyllo is much flakier than puff pastry and will not work well with this dish. After rolling out the puff pastry I also cut out some leaves out of the puff pastry and rolled a long string so I could make a vine shape on the top of the Turkey Wellington. I think this is a nice touch and makes for a pretty presentation on your holiday table. This is not difficult to do and only requires a knife to cut out the leaf shape. You do not need any special equipment. When you bake the Turkey Wellington the puff pastry may crack a little. This is perfectly fine and helps to show the authenticity of your dish. I think the cracks are beautiful and organic. You made it after all! Cooking is a fluid, natural process and you should not obsess over perfection. Save perfection for baking. Baking is much more precise and leaves less room for error.

I think this recipe is a big crowd pleaser. The turkey stays juicy when baked in the puff pastry and the combination of the different flavors are amazing. This recipe says “home” to me. It is perfect for Thanksgiving or any other Fall or Winter evening.