Beef Roulade

This is my version of one of Germany’s most famous and delicious dishes. Rouladen features thin strips or slices of meat slathered with mustard and filled with bacon, onions, and pickles.  The filling is enclosed by rolling up the meat strips, tying them with cooking twine, dredging in flour, browning, and then slow-roast or simmering them in a rich sauce or thick gravy.

For today's Roulades, I have some very thinly sliced ribeye roast. I sliced it myself on a Braun home slicer, but you can find presliced meats at some Asian stores. I would avoid having the local butcher slice a roast as they tend to raise the pound price for this extra service.

Traditional Rouladen calls for bacon as the inside rolled meat, but the German woman who taught me used sausage instead. Here, I plan to alternate between bacon and sausage and occasionally a bit of both. As the sausage is browning, I diced the vegetables that will go into the sauce.

 

There is a quick and easy method to separate garlic bulbs and remove the peels of each clove.

You will need a metal or glass bowl with a metal or glass cover. Put the bulbs in, cover them, and shake vigorously. This will separate the individual cloves from the bulb husk. Now pick out the cloves which still have their peels. 

After discarding the husks, toss in the cloves and repeat the vigorous shake. This will remove the individual peelings leaving the naked cloves. This process will take a lot of shaking for both steps depending on the resilience of the garlic, but it doesn't do any harm to the cloves.

The rouladen are made by spreading some German mustard on thinly cut slices of beef, adding bacon or sausage, sliced German pickles, and chopped onions.  

Lay out the meat on top of a piece of cooking twine. don't try to economize by saving on the length of twine; string is cheap and trying to tie the knot with a short piece of twine is frustrating. Slather with good german mustard, stone ground preferred.  Next slice your pickles. These had very tough skins so I removed them and it made for a tender filling pickle.

Now for the meat filling:

I had some very lean pepper bacon which I sectioned to make the roll uniform. I prepared the rolls three at a time as the cutting board can get crowded fast.

I mistakenly laid out the bacon lengthwise and ended up having to change to crosswise. This made the rolling easier and the roll less bulky.

The sausage, which was Jimmy Dean's hot, was laid on top of the pickles. the sausage pieces were small to make them easier to cut with the cooked roulades, but I had to be careful when I rolled these as the chunks would tend to fall out the ends of the roll.

These roulades have both bacon and sausage since nothing ever comes out even. Add some diced onions and you're good.

Sprinkle with some salt and pepper and roll them up as well as you can. Secure the rolls with a toothpick or cooking twine.  Once again use plenty of twine as the rolls can easily be mangled by trying to tie with too short of string.

Heat butter and oil in a cast iron pan or Dutch oven. Then dredge the rolls in flour and brown them on all sides in the oil and butter. Browning seals in the flavor and assures a delicious sauce.

Remove the rolls from the pot and add the previously diced vegetables and some more butter. cook the vegetables mixing them with the dredge remains. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Add in some wine and spices. I used some Cayanne pepper powder and added some more minced garlic. Bring to a boil for one minute then reduce heat and simmer for another couple of minutes.

I left mine as is and it has a chunky texture. You can use these vegetables later for a flavorful gravy.

Add some beef broth if this is too thick.

Put some of the sauce or gravy into the pan, dutch oven, or a separate baking dish. Nestle the rolls in whichever vessel you are using. You can cook on the stovetop covered on low for 90 minutes or until tender or cook in the oven covered at preheated 325 degrees. 

If you cooked the rouladen with coarsely diced vegetables you can remove the rolls when they are done and strain the vegetables or remove them all and puree them in a food processor, and add them back for a thick, tasty gravy.  Bring to a simmer and thicken with either cornstarch or flour for an opaque gravy.  You can also add a few tablespoons of heavy cream at this point. Simmer, whisking constantly, until the gravy is thickened. 

Any way you choose this is a hearty, dinner with boiled potatoes, sweet and sour red cabbage called Rotkohl, or German egg noodles called Spaeetzle- but that's another recipe.