Welcome back to another round of #DISHTOPIA recipes! If you’re just joining us, this month I’m hosting Fandom Foodies’ dystopian fiction-themed recipe link-up. Last post we dined through Dishonored with a recipe for Apricot Tartlets. This week we’re hitting up another Bethesda game – Fallout: New Vegas and rolling up a batch of The Gourmand’s Brahmin Wellington!
Click here to skip to the recipe for Brahmin Wellington.
Savage and Sophisticated
“The only difference between savage and sophisticated is the proper seasoning” – Mortimer.
Brahmin Wellington is the signature dish of the Ultra-Luxe Casino‘s fine dining restaurant The Gourmand. Run by the secretive White Glove Society, the Ultra-Luxe prides itself in presenting the most refined experience a post-apocalyptic wasteland can offer to its esteemed guests. That said, the people, dishes, and quests found in this casino present an interesting commentary on what defines luxury.
Regarding food, the Ultra-Luxe’s Assistant Manager Mortimer has this to say:
“For our society to be truly elite, we must dine on the most delicious, the most exclusive food known to us.”
Concerning the game, this means ensuring the exclusivity to keep one’s relevance in the eyes of the elite. The White Glove Society does this mostly by paying off the lawmakers keep the brahmin, the Fallout series’ two-headed bovine, unreasonably expensive outside of the casino’s marble-covered walls. I cannot help but be reminded of the lobster’s culinary elevation from the peasant’s edible cockroach of the sea to the preferred course of LEGO Bruce Wayne.
When you hear something being considered a delicacy, you really need to pay attention to the word “considered.” The ability to obtain the exclusive makes one feel luxuriant and worthy — this is a societal constant. You, by consuming a rare item, should also consider yourself an exceptional person because you are among the few who have shared that experience. You are, figuratively, what you eat.
The irony of that statement is not lost on me with what the White Glove Society ALSO considers a delicacy.
Brahmin Fusion Cusine
“I am the %#^$ing god of New Vegas’s brahmin-fusion cuisine. No, that doesn’t give me the credit I deserve. I %#^$ing invented edible food! Do you like eating? Good. You owe me you godd@mned garbage existence.” – Phillipe
The above quote comes from The Gourmand’s Head Chef, Phillipe. This man can and will trash-talk you in a way that would make Gordon Ramsey, Anthony Bourdain, and even Lance Casteau need a whole aloe factory for those burns. He can also make one of the few dishes in New Vegas that won’t add to your radiation poisoning: Brahmin Wellington.
Brahmin Wellington is a cut of brahmin meat smothered with a layer of puffy ant egg pastry. Our real-world equivalent is Beef Wellington, which is typically made with beef tenderloin. I won’t lie to you, folks. Beef tenderloin is wicked expensive. That’s why I went with a beef eye-of-round roast and tenderized it by marinating it in Nuka Cola for 48 hours. You’ll also want to remove the fat cap and trim the sides so it cooks evenly.
The crafting recipe calls for BlamCo Mac and Cheese, which I assume initially was for the pastry until a later update added a bag of flour to the list. Beef Wellington normally contains mushroom duxelles — a mixture of sautéed chopped mushrooms, wine, and onions. Considering pre-war packaged food is also hard to come by in a post-apocalyptic world, I assume that rarity made mac and cheese into the new foie gras.
According to diners at The Gourmand Phillipe can make brahmin steak into a delicacy. You wouldn’t know it, though, by the game’s less than stunning food visuals in this level. This is why I used Dyetrek’s “The Gourmand Revived” mod to figure out the rest of my flavor agents. Observe this slab of brahmin garnished with jalapenos and pinyon (pine) nuts!
Strange Meat = Explosive Flavor
Taking this, and the fact that you find pinyon nuts in Phillipe’s fridge into account, I smothered the roast in pine nut pesto and mixed minced and sauteed jalapeno into my mac and cheese duxelles.
To give the dish that imitation “strange meat” flavor, I used a mix of ham and prosciutto to wrap up this elevated pig in a blanket. While I won’t stop you from making your own puff pastry, and I congratulate you for having a level of patience that I will never possess, a box of store-bought pastry is perfectly acceptable to use.
The great thing about puff pastry? It’s stupid easy to make something look cool with it. The first time my husband and I made Beef Wellington he used dinosaur cookie cutters to turn it into a Jurassic Christmas wonder. This time we wanted to use the source as our inspiration.
So here it is, a budget-friendly wasteland delicacy that will reward you for your patience. If you liked this recipe, or want to cook more like its the end of the world, then check out my food in dystopian fiction link-up #Dishtopia!
recipe
Cooking with the Courier
The Gourmand's Brahmin Wellington
Serves 4-8
Equipment: Oven, stovetop, gallon-sized sealable bag, plastic wrap, rolling pin, skillet, medium saucepan, baking sheet, pastry, and parchment paper.
Ingredients:
- 3 lb eye of round beef roast
- 2 cups diet cola
- 1-2 jalapenos, minced, seeds removed
- 1/2 lb prosciutto or sliced ham cold cuts
- 7.25 oz box Kraft macaroni and cheese
- 2 tablespoons margarine
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons basil pesto
- cooking spray
- cooking oil
- pine nuts for garnish
Instructions
At least two days before cooking:
- Carefully remove the fat cap from the roast with a sharp knife. Trim the sides of the roast until the thickness is mostly uniform.
- Place the roast in the ziplock bag and pour in the diet coal. Seal the bag and refrigerate for at least 48 hours.
Day of cooking:
- Bring a saucepan of water to a boil on the stovetop. Pour the noodles in and let cook 7 and a half minutes, stirring to prevent clumping. Reserve approximately 1/2 cup of pasta water before draining. Stir in the margarine, then the cheese powder, then a splash of pasta water. Let sit to cool.
- Remove the roast from the bag and dry completely with paper towels. Discard the marinade. Season the roast liberally on all sides with kosher salt.
- Heat the skillet on the stovetop with a layer of cooking oil over high heat. Brown the roast for a minute on each side and transfer to a cutting board. Coat the roast with pesto.
- Add the minced jalapeno to the hot pan and saute for a minute before stirring it into the pot of mac and cheese.
- Cover your work surface with overlapping layers of plastic wrap that are twice as long and wide as the roast. Place overlapping strips of ham or prosciutto onto the plastic into a large rectangle.
- Beat one of the eggs and stir into the mac and cheese. Spread a layer of mac and cheese onto the prosciutto, leaving a seam allowance of at least two inches.
- Place the roast on one end of the rectangle and roll to wrap it — using the plastic to guide and tighten. Twist the ends of the plastic wrap and tuck under the roast and chill in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.
- Cover your work surface with another set of overlapping layers of plastic wrap. Overlap the thawed puff pastry sheets and press together. Flatten the pastry with a rolling pin to a large, even square on top of the plastic.
- Preheat the oven to 400° F.
- Remove the roast from the fridge and unwrap the plastic wrap and place it on the pastry. Using the plastic wrap to guide and tighten, roll and cover the roast in pastry. Cut the excess dough and twist the ends of the plastic to seal. Chill in the fridge for another 15 minutes.
- While the oven preheats, roll the remaining dough out and cut shapes and strips for decoration. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and coat it lightly with cooking spray.
- Unwrap the plastic wrap from the roast and then place it seam-side down on the baking sheet. Decorate the roast with the remaining puff pastry dough and brush with beaten egg. Season lightly with kosher salt then bake for 30-35 minutes, until the roast reaches an internal temperature of 125 F.
- Allow the Brahmin Wellington to rest at least 5-10 minutes before slicing with a serrated bread knife and garnishing with pine nuts.
