On a daily basis, I cook for one! There are times when I get hungry for foods
that are typically made in big batches, and I don’t want to wait until my
monthly ‘Sunday Dinner’ that I prepare for my family. I’m learning how to adjust those big batch recipes
… to get the flavors I’m craving … but not get too much food for my empty nest.
I’m sharing my recipe for my Tastes Just Like Beef Rouladen.
I’ve made the real thing many times for dinner parties, especially when
we celebrated Octoberfest! My family has
a strong German ancestry, but my mother didn’t cook that way. Or so I thought! In 1990, I decided to spend the entire year
teaching myself how to prepare German food.
Little did I know … everything my mother prepared had a German twist to
it! I just didn’t understand that,
growing up!
When I purchase a big beef roast, I divide it into 1
or 2 pound portions and freeze it. I had
a 2-pound piece of sirloin tip roast in the freezer, so that is what I used for
my Rouladen. What I did not take time to
do was slice and roll the pieces of beef. I put the whole roast in the
crock pot and cooked it on high for 3 hours and turned it down to low for an
additional hour.
Here are the ingredients:
A 2-pound beef roast; any cut will do
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon dried orange peel
1 teaspoon dill seed
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon salt
Several grinds of black peppercorns
4 slices of bacon
1 cup of water
1/2 cup of red wine
1 onion, chopped
6 cornichons or 2 dill pickles cut into sections
1/2 cup of juice from the pickle jar
Place the water, red wine and pickle juice in the
crock pot. Rub the meet with all the
spices and place it in the crock pot. Lay
the bacon slices over the roast and cut slits into the meat and stick the
pickles into the slits. Make a brown
gravy with the broth from the meat. Make
a slurry of cornstarch and water; skim the grease off the broth; add a little Kitchen
Bouquet to the broth and stir in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the broth to a
boil so it thickens.
This recipe tastes just like the real thing, but takes
so little time to make. It would be wonderful with mashed potatoes, spaetzle or wonderful fried potatoes! Enjoy!
