Every once in a while, I crave a big hearty German Sunday family dinner.
When I was growing up, my Daddy had a deep love of German food and was known to whip up feasts of schnitzel, duck and sauerkraut, reubens, bratwurst, warm potato salad, and lots of other delicious things.
Fall and the holiday season always seemed to kick off the majority of these feasts and so it’s really no surprise that after all these years, I have carried on that deep love of seasonal feasts and now prepare them for my own family.
In the mid-2000s I met a new friend whose husband is a native of Germany and he added the most amazing and wonderful dish to my repertoire, rouladen.
It has a whole pickle inside each serving…..a whole pickle. Pickles are hands down my favorite food in the world and each serving of this wonderful dish is stuffed with one! I was sold right away.
While my friend’s husband wouldn’t share his grandma’s recipe with me, I did a little research, combined a few recipes, played with a few ingredients, and came up with a reasonable facsimile.
You can really use any pickles that you like but our favorite is Kuhne German Barrel Pickles available at several local grocery stores.
I typically serve a warm German potato salad and peas with rouladen but you can google amazing German sides if that doesn’t trip your trigger. However you serve it, rouladen is a fabulous, stick to your ribs, cool evening choice to kick off your fall menu planning.
Glücklich Ocktober!
Rouladen
2 ½ lbs. lean high-quality beef round steak, cut into 8 equal rectangular sections and pounded flat
8 Tbsp. grainy yellow or brown mustard
Salt and pepper, to taste
4-6 slices bacon, chopped
½ of a medium yellow onion, chopped
8 small whole dill pickles
¼ C oil, for frying
3 ½ C hot beef broth
1/3 C flour
Spread 1 tablespoon mustard evenly on one side of each pounded steak. Salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle bacon and onion over the mustard. Place one pickle on one end of each steak and roll up firmly in a jelly roll fashion. Secure ends with toothpicks. In a large heavy bottom pot or deep pan, heat the cooking oil over medium-high heat. Fry rouladen rolls until nicely browned, turning once, 6-7 minutes per side. Add enough hot beef broth to almost cover the rouladen. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer, covered, for 1 ½ hours on low heat adding more broth to keep rolls covered. Remove the rolls from the hot broth and place in an oven-proof dish. Cover with foil and keep warm in the oven.
To make gravy, add flour to 1 cup of water in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Pour the mixture all at once into the hot broth, whisking to blend. Turn heat to medium-high, and bring gravy to a boil, whisking constantly. Whisk while boiling for a couple minutes, until gravy thickens. Reduce heat to low and taste for seasoning. Adjust of necessary. Place the rouladen into the hot gravy; cover, and warm through for a few minutes. Serve with extra gravy for pouring!
