Celebrity chef dismayed her recipe was used by Australia’s mushroom killer
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An annotated photo of plates containing samples of a beef Wellington meal laced with toxic mushrooms that was prepared by Australian killer Erin Patterson.
PHOTO: AFP
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MELBOURNE – One of Australia’s most famous chefs said she was dismayed to learn that killer cook Erin Patterson partially used her recipe when baking a poisonous beef Wellington that killed three people.
Patterson was found guilty
She based the dish – poisonous fungi aside – on a recipe by celebrity chef Nagi Maehashi, the author of best-selling cookbooks.
Ms Maehashi said her recipe for the perfect beef Wellington had become “entangled in a tragic situation”.
“It is of course upsetting to learn that one of my recipes – possibly the one I’ve spent more hours perfecting than any other – something I created to bring joy and happiness, is entangled in a tragic situation,” she said late on July 8 on social media.
Throughout a trial lasting more than two months, Patterson maintained that the beef-and-pastry dish was accidentally poisoned with death cap mushrooms, the world’s most lethal fungus.
But a 12-person jury on July 7 found the 50-year-old guilty of triple murder, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. She was also found guilty of attempting to murder a fourth guest who survived. AFP
