Rouladen, or rinderrouladen, is a German comfort food consisting of thin strips of usually beef, rolled with mustard, bacon, onion, and pickle stewed in a rich gravy. I know, it sounds so good. I used a recipe based on Chef John (of food wishes dot com) to make mine. And spoiler alert, they were SO good.
I decided to make these because I had bought some skirt steak, and the butcher, when I asked him to tenderize, sliced it into some thin strips, trimming all the fat, then running it through the tenderizer. Here is my mise en place:
What you don’t see is that under the bacon I also had some salt pork “bacon”. I had seven strips of the skirt steak after trimming. I seasoned the meat, then spread mustard on it, then gave it a schmear of mustard, then put the bacon/salt pork, paprika, onion, and pickle on it
After rolling and securing with twine, I browned it. I had some leftover onion, and I also had a spare jalapeno on hand, and so I added that to the roux, then added chicken broth to make the gravy. I also had a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary as well, which I added to the gravy. I added the browned rouladen to it and then began the braise/stew
After about an hour and a half or so, I removed the rouladen and reduced the gravy. Because of my surgery, I could only eat half a rouladen for a meal. When I did my meal prep for this, I used a package of instant mashed potatoes. I divided them all with a half rouladen, some potatoes, and that gravy, which was SO good. If you make this, make it for the gravy it produces. Oh. My. God. Anyway, here’s a cross section of how my rouladen turned out:
As you can see, it looks almost exactly like the top photo, sans gravy. And they were good. It’s a real interesting play between the beef, the mustard, and the pickle. I highly recommend you all make this recipe. It takes time to prep, but it’s SO worth it. Plus, you can change up the recipe to suit your tastes. That’s just you cooking. This weekend, I’m doing a beef broth, which could feed me for almost a week. I’m changing up my usual broth recipe and, in addition to my usual carrots and garlic cloves, will be adding a can of corn and a can of green beans, giving it a vegetable soup vibe. As I type this, it smells SO good right now. Times are tough for me, and soups and broths go a LONG way.
So, what’s for dinner at your place tonight? I can’t wait to hear some new ideas I can use.