Our baker, and probably a lot of other bakers, is very creative with his croissants. When we get our bread on Saturday morning, we always pick up a chocolate, ham/cheese or Frankfurter croissant.
We had a nice Wagyu roast beef in the freezer, so we thought it would be a good idea to make roast beef croissants.
Roast beef is just roast beef, even though it’s Wagyu roast beef. That is why we are going to provide it with a nice dry rub. We use mustard to make the dry rub stick. This is a nice coarse and spicy mustard but any mustard is fine.
This is a Wagyu roast beef. Not necessary for this recipe, but it does help because the meat itself is a lot juicier due to the higher amount of intramuscular fat.
Then the roast beef goes into the smoker with a thermometer in the meat. We are going to smoke the roast beef at a temperature of 120°C (248F). Nice and low and slow so that the meat has time to absorb some smoke.
Our Masterbuilt 560 smoker is the perfect barbecue for these types of preparations. You fill it with charcoal or briquettes, light it like a fire starter and set the temperature. The Masterbuilt does the rest. Great if you want to sit in the sun with a beer without attending the grill all the time. You will automatically be warned when the meat is ready.
After three and a half, four hours the meat is perfectly 48°C (118F). Because the outside is slightly hotter, some heat will be transferred to the inside of the meat while resting. As a result, the core temperature rises a little further.
That rest is also useful. Because a lot of moisture is forced out during cooking, there is a lot of moisture on the edges of the meat. If you cut the meat now, moisture will be lost and the inside of the meat will be a lot drier. In this case, that rest can really take up to half an hour. We are going to add the roast beef cold to the croissant dough.
Croissant dough is not light by itself, but we are going to make it even tastier, read fatter. We roll a few knobs of herb butter along with the roast beef. This will ensure that the meat stays nice and juicy and the taste of this croissant will be even fuller.
We use ready-made croissant dough from a tin. To ensure that the croissant turns a nice golden brown, we brush the dough with eggwash. You can also use milk if you prefer. We think it works better with egg.
We set the masterbuilt to 200°C (392F) as stated on the packaging and wait 10 minutes until the smoker is up to temperature. Try that with a kamado.
After half an hour we have beautiful croissants. If you get up on time, you can make them for breakfast. An hour or two later and you call it brunch. Very fancy.
Now that you know how to make these delicious croissants, you can make them yourself. Let us know if it worked. Or better! Take a photo and post it on Instagram. Tag @bbqheroes and @masterbuilt so we can see what your croissants look like.
Ingredients
- 600 grams roast beef
- 2 cans of croissant dough
- 2 tbsp mustard
- herbed butter
For the dry rub
- 2 tsp paprika powder
- 1 tsp onion granulate
- 1/2 tsp coarse salt
- 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
- 1/4 tsp garlic granulate
Instructions
- Mix the ingredients of the dry rub. Brush the roast beef with mustard and sprinkle an even layer of the dry rub over it.
- Smoke the roast beef at 120°C (248F) to a core temperature of 48°C (118F).
- Let the roast beef rest and then put it in the fridge to cool completely.
- Cut the roast beef against the grain of the meat into thin slices.
- Roll out the croissant dough as indicated on the package and place 2 slices of roast beef on each piece of dough with a few knobs of herb butter on top. Roll up the dough, not too tight.
- Prepare the croissants as directed on the package.
