Reinhard, do you have a rouladen recipe/advice?

[deerminator]

I saw a good one made on Diners Drive ins and Dives the other night when running on the treadmill. The premise was the basic rouladen, altough this guy didn't cook the bacon before rolling it up. After sauteing for a bit, he braised it a pot on top of the stove for about an hour and a half in a sauce I didn't really catch.

[reinhard1]

i also dont fry the bacon before rolling it up. first of all rouladen is a thin slice of lean meat usualy cut from the sirloin tip or top round. i prefer the top round. if you dont need a large amount, say 8 or ten or so slices sometimes in the meat dept check out the thin sliced tip there for sandwich steak, that works real good. even though thin i still pound it down a bit. otherwise ask the butcher for thin sirloin tip or top round and tell him what your making. here is what you need: thin slices of lean beef - mustard - fine cut bacon - fine cut dill pickles [ i buy pickle relish dill style not sweet ] - fine cut onions. take the slice of beef and smear mustard on it all over. take a small amount of onions, bacon, and relish and put them on the slice. i kind of put them in the middle. then start your rolling, and after the first roll i tuck the ends in if you can and continue the rolling till sealed. do the best you can and secure the roll with round tooth picks. some use cotton string which is good but i got tired of tying so many. i usualy have some spare bacon, just enough to put in a large skillet and i brown the rolls in that. in the meantime i put two bags of lipton beefy onion soup mix in a roaster with two bottles of beer [not dark]. mix it up good and put your rolls in the roaster when browned. last time i made thirty rolls so i used double of that mixture. you want enough of that soup mix and beer mix to just about cover the rolls. bake at 350 until tender, turning them over here and there. when done take the rouladen out on a plate and strain the liquid. then thicken the gravey to your liking and put the rolls back in with the gravey and serve the rolls and the gravey out from the roaster. it's important to keep the rolls in the gravey so they dont get dry. do not add any other spices to the gravy. all the magic is there. there are recepies for german dumplings and sourkrout somewhere on this thread also. need anything else let me know. i also do this with the top round of venison. the bacon i use is raw not fryed. just buy a package and cut it up in small bits. good luck.

[deerminator]

Thx! Sounds great. So do you just use a pilsner then or something light or more of an ale or midway through the spectrum for beer? I may substitiute it altogeter with some beef broth and then just go regular onion soup mix. Reason being we have a 3 and 6 year old. However, as I've told my wife, the tylenol or ibuprofen they take when they have a fever would do more damage to their livers than the amount of alcohol in a dish like that. I've actually read up on that quite a bit in terms of how much cooks off and its effect on kids. Reason being is the kids love my venison marsala, though I still tend to wipe the sauce off on their servings.

[reinhard1]

miller light or any beer of that variety. alcohol evaporat's during the cooking proccess, at times in the roaster and at times down the throat. i have used only beefy onion soup mix. doesn't mean plain onion soup mix wont work. this is what i mean about everyone's own taste. something i will try the next time is to chop up some fresh garlic and put a small piece in each roll and any left over in the liquid mix. that beefy onion soup mix is all the spices i need. depending on the beef broth used it may add additional salt that the soup mix already has. anyway, after all said and done there is no better gravey then from rouladen as prepared in this way. i serve the rouladen with german dumplings and the bacon krout mix i have mentioned in these threads. i also would think this gravey would go over pasta very well. good luck.

[deerminator]

Thanks again. I cannot wait to try. Per the alcohol topic, I watched a food detectives once on the foodnetwork where they experimented and found that the longer you bake or simmer, the less alcohol remains (duh). But that nearly half of the alcohol remained after baking or simmering for an hour and braising something for 3 hours or so, there was still like 5 percent alcohol. A minute amount I know, but you have to let something go for a while to really cook it off. They showed how lighting the alcohol in the pan for bananas foster or something similar left about 85 percent of the alcohol. Saueteeing with it for 20-30 minutes was better but still about half of the alcohol remained. Like I said, not really worth worring about but found it interesting.

[reinhard1]

i used to tell customers if they were concerned about the alcahol to use a non-alcoholic beer. i also believe that alcohol in wine and beer helps tenderize the meat as well. now, one can use spring water also but this is the way my mother made rouladen since i can remember even when we where kids. she still ties hers with cotton string but i use the round toothpicks. i also use beer when i make a pot roast. simmer fresh brats or kielbasa in beer and onions and then grill them. i also use beer instead of water to add for moisture when i make my fresh sausages. i have sausage reciepies that call for wine usage [italian sausage for example]. but for those who just dont drink anything with alcohol in it, by all means a non-alcoholic beer or wine or just plain spring water will work. good luck.