rouladen

German rouladen,  home made mashed potatoes, and gravy. YUM!

I'm not sure how to spell this word. I'm guessing here, since it's a German word and a German dish. a main course. a meat dish. Anyhow, this dish, rouladen, is delicious! It's not hard to make, but it does take some time and lots of prep time, lots of cooking time. note to Heidi: Is this the way you spell it Heidi? Is this the way you make rouladen? What do you think?

This is what you need as far as your ingredients:

You need pickles, bacon, salt, pepper, onion, mustard, thin cut beef, water, meat pounder

You will also need some corn starch when making the gravy.

Cut your bacon and onion and pickles like I have shown in the picture above. Get about 3 tablespoons of regular mustard in a bowl as shown.

My in laws, Henry and Marga used to buy a big lean beef roast and then have the butcher slice it thinly for him. I've done that before, but it's hard to find a butcher who is willing to do that really thin slicing of a roast. I find it's easier to buy the pre-packaged thin cuts of beef like breakfast beef steaks, or just thinly sliced beef in the meat department. I'm not sure what their 'proper' names would be right now.


So as you pull your thin slices of meat out, trim the excess fat as shown here:

 pound them a little bit to make them even thinner. Then you will 1. sprinkle with salt and pepper 2. smear a line of mustard on each piece of meat as shown here:

Now you will add some pickle, onions, and bacon on top of the smear of mustard like this:

Next you will roll your meat up with your goodies in the middle like this:

add a toothpick to hold your rolled up meat together. (I forgot to take a picture of it to show you)





Get you a large skillet hot with a bit of olive oil, add your rolled up meat as you prepare them, like this:

Here I have 2 skillets going. The juice of the pickles will make it juice up like this, notice the skillet on the right. It's ok, it will evaporate, or cook off. I'll show you later.

 You'll want to cook them until the liquid is gone, and the meat looks like this, nice and brown:

Now take the meat out of the skillet and this is what will be left:

Now add about one cup of water to your hot skillet and stir all that stuff together with the water. This is what makes your gravy delicious! should look like this:

Now bring back the meat rolls, back into the skillet they go, like this:

After you put all your meat rolls in the skillet, cover, and simmer for about 2 hours, like this:

 

After 2 hours, the meat looks like this:

 You are going to make your gravy, so you will take your meat out again like this:

blurry picture, sorry

 This is what the juice looks like. yummy, but needs to be thickened:

You don't have to add a thing to this delicious juice, only need to thicken it with corn starch. You will need to mix 1 table spoon in about 1/4 cup of water. Dissolve the corn starch and add to the meat juice, your skillet is on medium at this point. Stir until it is well mixed in and the gravy is thickened.

This is what thickened gravy looks like:

You're all done. Time to eat. Serve the rouladen with some mashed potatoes and a salad, and you are SET! YUM!

Don't forget to take the toothpicks out before you eat!

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I learned how to make rouladen from my German mother in law Marga.

Henry, my father in law, also made rouladen after Marga was gone. He had us over often when he made it. yummy for us.

Yes, I know I have said that my mother in law was mean to me. Yes she was, but she did occasionally let her softer side out and she taught me a few things. I am grateful for that. Let's see what else did I learn from Marga. She taught me how to properly iron a man's shirt. Noone had ever taught me! She taught me a few things about how to take stains out when doing laundry. She taught me that I should clean the grout in the floor and bathroom tiles every so often with a brush. She taught me that I should soak my dish rag in bleach and water in between washings, and that I should throw that dish rag and sponge in the laundry when I did whites. omg, I can't believe I never washed them before she taught me that I should!

I am sure I learned more from Marga, I just can't remember, and now I really wish I could remember. It will come to me, I'm sure, I hope, because I really want to remember...

My fondest memories of my mother in law are those we had in the kitchen, or her teaching me this and that. It was the times she accepted my invitation to be a mom to me. I wish she hadn't died so soon. I wish she was around when I was a bit older. Maybe I would have had a chance to better understand her, to be able to handle her mean moments towards me. I think, with age and life wisdom,  I could have allowed her 'soft' side to appear towards me more often. I wish.

Anyway, I am so grateful for Marga teaching me a few things. Remember I had no mother of my own from the time I was 12, so I gathered information and knowledge, bits and pieces, from here and there, wherever God and my sweet angel decided to send it to me and which people was used to teach me. After giving it a bit of thought I can say that Marga is the one 'real' person I learned the most from as far as the how to's  of domestic duties. How to be a wife and homemaker. I am thankful.