- Look-wise, we're so there that I'm scared.
- What is that?
- What is this?
- I feel like it's best
if people don't see how this is made at this point.
Let's just keep it to the end result.
- Gordon Ramsay just lost his job.
There's a new chef in town.
- Hey, what's up, everybody?
It's your girl, Merle, and like so many of you,
I've picked up quite a thing or two
from the famous chefs we see on TV.
If there's one thing I've noticed in culinary entertainment,
it's that vegan food and vegan chefs
tend to be highlighted significantly less.
And it is for that reason
that I am going to veganize a signature dish
of one of, if not, the most notorious celebrity chefs,
and that is Gordon Ramsay! (crowd clapping)
Gordon Ramsay is known for his fiery personality
and his love of swearing.
He's also a Scorpio.
I don't know anything about horoscopes.
I just think that's a fun detail.
He has accrued 16 Michelin stars and currently holds seven.
For those of you who don't know what that means,
it's a big deal, okay?
It's a very big deal.
Today, we are going to veganize this entertainment
and culinary mogul's signature dish, Beef Wellington!
Beef Wellington is comprised of a juicy beef tenderloin
that is then wrapped in a salty meat,
such as prosciutto, or Parma ham in Gordon Ramsay's case,
and then it has another layer of a mushroom duxelle,
and finally, it is snugly blanketed
within a buttery puff pastry.
Let's get into veganizing this dish.
My plan of attack for this dish
is going to be inspired by one Crossroads Kitchen,
where they have an Eggplant Wellington.
So here's our beautiful eggplant.
Our first step is going to be to trim the top
and the bottom, and then we're gonna just peel it
using this nice sharp knife we've got here.
All right, that's looking pretty good.
Now, we are going to take our eggplant,
and we're going to add it to a plastic bag
or a reusable bag, if you have one.
I should have one to set a good example, but I forgot mine,
so shake it off.
Eggplant is 92% water,
so we need to draw a lot of that moisture out
is what I'm saying.
Add our salt in.
Make sure this is truly sealed
before you go about shaking it.
Great.
And now that we have fully coated our eggplant,
we're gonna set it aside, and we're gonna let the salt
drain some of that moisture out for about an hour.
I put my hair up because I realized it's more sanitary,
so if you're shocked or you don't recognize me,
it's still me, Merle.
Our next step is to make the sort of marinade
that we're gonna be injecting,
yes, I said it, injecting, our eggplant with.
So we're gonna start with some water, coriander, cumin,
miso paste, some black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder,
some paprika, smoked paprika, lemon juice, and salt.
And lastly,
we're gonna add some beets that we've got cubed up
and some carrots for sweetness.
Before I blend this up,
Gordon Ramsay's whole take on beef tenderloin
is that he adds Parma ham.
So the smoked paprika is gonna add a little bit
of the smoky, dried meat flavor
that we're missing from prosciutto or Parma ham.
(blender whirring)
Now, we're gonna strain our mixture.
That looks pretty gnarly.
We're going to set this aside
'cause this will come in handy in a moment.
Listen. I don't feel good about this next step.
I'm a sex-positive person, okay?
Let's get that one thing straight.
But what I'm about to do to this eggplant,
children, avert your eyes.
If you can see, some of the water's already come out
on its own, like see, but we've got to do the rest manually.
There's just,
there's no way around how phallic this is about to be.
And, of course, it's an eggplant,
the global symbol of a phallus.
We're gonna squeeze the water out of this eggplant,
and we're gonna squeeze it
until it reduces in size by half.
You know.
Oh God. It's natural.
It's okay, everyone.
Can you tell how comfortable I am right now?
Suddenly very aware
of how many people are in this room with me.
The purpose of this is not just to humiliate me.
It's actually going to completely change the texture
of this eggplant.
This is now firm.
It feels similar to kind of tenderized meat.
Oh my God.
Why is everything I say horrible?
(Merle sighs)
So this is the part where we actually get to play scientist
'cause we're going to inject the marinade
directly into the eggplant, and we're going to transform it
from an average, everyday eggplant
into something resembling meat,
as if you thought this recipe couldn't get any weirder.
So the key to this is going to be
to try to evenly distribute our marinade
throughout the eggplant.
I feel like it's best if people don't see how this is made
at this point.
Let's just keep it to the end result.
You know what I mean?
They don't need to see the things I go through
to get it on their plate.
It looks like a bloody mess,
and that's what we want from our meat, right?
Our prodigy eggplant.
In this bowl, I've got some garlic powder, salt, and pepper,
and I'm just going to sprinkle it evenly over our eggplant
before we toss it in the oven.
Now we're gonna bake our eggplant at 425 degrees Fahrenheit,
that's 200 degrees Celsius, for about 20 minutes.
So while our eggplant is baking,
we're going to make a duxelle.
We're gonna start by melting some vegan butter,
cremini mushrooms, some shiitake mushrooms,
and just to prove how fancy this is, some shallot.
Now, we're gonna stir this up,
and we're gonna cook these over the medium-high heat
for about four to five minutes
until we've noticed that the mushrooms have released
most of the liquid.
We're going to add in garlic, some olive oil,
some salt, pepper, some dry vermouth...
you can also use sherry or even white wine...
and thyme.
We are gonna cook these for about eight to 10 minutes
until the rest of the liquid has pretty much evaporated
and the mushrooms are a nice amber brown.
And now we're just going to blend up our duxelle
in a food processor.
And now we've got our eggplant.
Remember the eggplant?
And we're gonna start off by brushing it
with some mustard.
The mustard will add a little bit of heat
and a little bit of spice.
Now, it's time for us to work with our puff pastry.
So we want to leave some to hang over on the side here,
and then we're just going to cut right down the line.
We're going to spread our duxelle about three quarters
of the way up our puff pastry,
plop our eggplant on there, and roll her up.
We're gonna mix together some water, soy sauce, and flour.
Mix that up.
And we're just going to paint our puff pastry,
and then we're gonna just go over it one more time
with some olive oil, which will just help to crisp it up
and give it a nice little shine.
The last thing we're going to do is cut three diagonal slits
into the top of our pastry.
And we are going to bake it for 25 more minutes.
So while our Beef Wellington is baking,
we're going to make our savory sauce,
which we will use to serve our delicious meal with.
We are going to add some water, red wine,
some soy sauce, and some concentrated vegetable paste.
Finally, I'm gonna add a sprig of thyme.
And in the meantime,
we're going to mix together a little cornstarch slurry,
which consists of cornstarch and water.
Beautiful.
You'll know that your sauce is done
when it can easily coat the back of a spoon.
All right, check it out.
It's all baked up.
It's looking pretty meaty, I'm not gonna lie.
This end in particular, this rump on the end here,
really, it really is...
I was gonna say familiar,
but I feel like that's just a weird sentence,
so we'll skip over that.
So let's carve her up, shall we?
(triumphant music)
This is fascinating to me.
It looks like smoked ham, honestly.
It's very tough, kind of like meat would be.
I mean, it looks unbelievable.
Yes, I know there are some seeds in there,
and it's not completely perfect, but it's pretty darn close,
if I do say so myself.
My brain is trying to connect dots that don't exist.
There are a lot of flavors going on.
We've got the puff pastry. We've got the duxelle.
We've got this savory sauce. We've got the eggplant meat.
The experience of actually cutting into the eggplant
is kind of wild because, normally, eggplant, like I said,
is light and spongy, but this is dense and more meaty.
I don't think in a million years
that anyone is going to be fooled by this.
Let's get some people in here
and scare the life out of them.
All right.
Ready? Three, two, one.
- Wow.
(Ben laughs)
- Okay.
- Is this like vegan Beef Wellington?
- Yes.
- Check me out. I'm proud of myself.
- You should be.
- I'm getting a-hunk-of-meat vibes.
- It looks like steak wrapped in croissant bread,
but also maybe an apple pie of some sort,
and just dropped in barbecue sauce.
- Let me do a little smell.
- Wafting method. Excuse me.
It doesn't smell bad.
- That's good.
- Squishy. (laughs)
What the hell is this? (laughs)
What is this?
- Oh, okay.
I mean, look at that cut.
Are you kidding me?
Are you kidding me? Yes.
- I don't even want to guess what that is.
- I just want to taste it.
- I'm gonna get a smaller piece, because I'm worried.
- That is a hefty bite,
but I've cut it and I have to go for it.
Okay.
Are we getting eggplant vibes?
- Oh yes.
- Are we getting eggplant vibes?
- Yes, you did it.
- Oh my god.
- You are divine.
- Is that a watermelon?
I don't know. Is it a squash?
- I don't understand the flavor there.
(crickets chirping)
Girl...
- Horrible?
- No!
- Oh my God.
Gordon Ramsay just lost his job.
There's a new chef in town.
- Hmm. (crickets chirping)
- I feel like the sauce definitely makes it more deep vibes.
I'm still getting a little of the crunch of a eggplant,
as opposed to beef. - Copy.
- But like, what can you do?
- Not much.
- Now, the meat, the beef of the Wellington,
is where the concern comes in a bit for me.
There's a lot of texture here, yeah?
- The outside of it is squishy,
but the inside of it is mushy.
- It's harder to get that beefy texture.
- [Merle] Totally.
- But with what we're working with, hot damn.
- I'm actually kind of digging a little bit.
- It takes some getting used to.
- Flavor-wise, we're there.
Look-wise, we're so there that I'm scared.
It is scary for me to look at this.
If I give this to a vegetarian, they go, ah.
If I give this to a vegan, they start crying.
- I would give this one a six.
- So clearly, I would give it a nine.
Clearly, as I lick the plate.
- That's average. (bell chimes)
- Five. It's average.
Five out of 10.
It's an acquired taste in a quiet place.
- Ah, the silence.
I mean, you made this a quiet place with that silence.
- That was my first eggplant.
Right here, I just popped my eggplant cherry.
- Nice. - Wow.
- That's not good for buzzing.
That's horrible. It sounds horrible.
Oh God.
(upbeat music)
Yeah, you can cut.