A few days ago, we made a special German dish – Beef Rouladen. In Germany one can buy special Rouladen beef – it’s cut thin and long and is meant for this dish. If you live in another place where Rouladen beef is unavailable, you can use a tougher cut of meat, such as round steak or flank steak, sliced very thinly (I’d ask your butcher, instead of trying to do this yourself). It needs to be thin and long enough to be rolled around some other ingredients.

  The German cut to Rouladen, easy to roll. The variant you can see above is filled with chopped bacon, onion, and arugula. Easier to roll,  otherwise its all the same. When we need a fancy decoration for guests, we like that precise result as one can see in the top picture.

In Uruguay this cut is almost impossible to get. Here I use fresh cut „Milanesa“, large pieces only. Then my butcher runs it twice through his Milanesa „flatten“ machine. If not we use our wooden meat tenderizer (or meat mallet) and flatten it ourselves.

  The Uruguayan Milanesa variant.

Ingredients.

8 thinly sliced pieces of beef, such as round or flank steak (or Rouladen meat if you can find it) about c. 1/2-cm (1/4-inch) thick, and about 17-20cm (7-8 inches) long
salt and pepper
Dijon mustard
8 slices bacon
1 large white onion, cut into wedges
2 large dill pickles, sliced into 8 long wedges
oil, for browning
1 can, 500ml (16oz), beef broth
flour and water slurry for thickening, if desired

  The original way like my mother used to make Rouladen. But in the 50’s she used to take cheaper bacon instead the fancy prosciutto you see above.

How to do.

1. For each Roulade, lay the steak out onto a clean cutting board or plate. Sprinkle on salt and pepper to taste. Spread mustard on in a thin layer, covering the whole Roulade. Lay the bacon on top of the Roulade, length-wise. Lay a wedge of onion and a wedge of pickle on the Roulade, width-wise. Roll up each Roulade and secure with a wooden toothpick or some cooking string.

      That’s the way how to make them, because of the Uruguayan meat cut the parcels can’t look like rolls, but they are as delicious as the strait rolled ones. Believe me .

   Never close your rouladen as lazy as you see here, you will loose all ingredients while cooking and end up with a better soup.

2. Heat oil in one or two skillets. Brown Rouladen, and then pour in the broth. Bring broth to a simmer and cover, cooking for 90 minutes. Turn Rouladen over once or twice during the cooking time.

     Browning the Rouladen in batches. Just the amount for 6 hungry people. Or as we always do, preparing a lot and then freezing some prtions for later use, fantastic.

3. If desired, thicken juices to make gravy. Combine flour and cold water in a small jar. Whisk mixture into hot broth and cook until thickened.

  Ingredients for our special veggie sauce. For this amount of Rouladen I used  onions, carrots, celery and crushed tomatoes – 3 cups each. Additional I added 1 1/2 cups each of remaining roastted meat sauce and beef stock, as well as 2 cups of strong red wine.

4. Serve Rouladen ( of course toothpicks or string removed) covered with gravy, potato mash and red cabbage.

  Normal serve, Rouladen red cabbage and mash potatoes.

Tips.

If one doesn’t like bacon so much, then a nice alternative is to smear some liverwurst onto the rouladen meat.

  If you invest a bit of effort and do your work right, you will end up with a delicious tasting and mouthwatering looking meal.

The variation we made this time was, that we left the bacon out and instead making a gravy, we cooked all in vegetables and pureed the veggies to a thick sauce.

        Roast vegetables shortly and then fill up with all liquid ingredients, season well with salt, black pepper and paprika powder. Even a bit cayenne pepper or chilli powder will do. Then insert the rouladen and cook on low heat 1 1/2 to 2 hours, till meat is really soft. All vegetables will cook down too.

    Remove the rouladen and puree the sauce. Serve that „thick“ vegetable sauce over Potatoes. Fresh green leaf lettuce will round the dish fine. Imagine this meal with a glass of fine red wine, you will love it. Leftovers of this great sauce we use sometimes over pasta – another great and delicious meal.

This dish is so good and flavorful that we use leftovers of this great sauce sometimes over pasta – another great and delicious meal.
We also made it with rustic bacon/mash potatoes or with pea/mash potatoes.  Enjoy !