Go Back
Beef rolls with spaetzle

German Beef rolls

Hearty German beef rolls, the so-called "Rouladen", are a popular dish for Sunday lunch or holiday feasts here in Southern Germany.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time 2 hours
Servings: 4 people
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: German
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 4 thin slices of ox or veal loin or haunch
  • salt
  • pepper to taste
  • mustard to taste homemade quince mustard for example
For the filling:
  • 100 g bacon or smoked ham
  • 2 onions
  • parsley
  • 2 – 4 pickled gherkins
For braising:
  • 40 – 50 g fat
  • 1 onion
  • root vegetables like carrots celery, parsnips, roughly chopped
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • ¼ l red wine
  • ¼ - ½ l vegetable broth
  • ½ - 1 tbsp flour

Equipment

  • 1 Pressure cooker optional

Method
 

  1. Carefully flatten the beef slices with a meat tenderiser or by pressing them with a pan.
  2. Prepare the filling: finely chop the onions, the bacon or smoked ham and the parsley. Sauté the mixture in a bit of butter or tallow.
  3. Spread each beef slice thinly with mustard, then with the filling.
  4. Quarter the pickled gherkins lengthwise or slice small ones in halves and put them onto the beef slices
  5. Roll the filled slices carefully so the filling doesn’t spill out. Close the rolls by binding them with kitchen yarn or by fixing them with a skewer.
  6. Salt and pepper the beef rolls and roll them in flour.
  7. Chop the onion; heat tallow in a large pan or pot and sear the beef rolls until they are browned.
  8. Add the onions, vegetables and tomato puree to the pot and brown them as well.
  9. Deglaze it all with the wine and let it simmer for a few minutes. Then, add the broth and let the whole thing simmer for 1.5 hours (40 minutes if you have loin beef) or 25 – 30 minutes if you stew it in a pressure cooker.
  10. After stewing, remove the rolls from the sauce and blend it with a hand-blender. If the sauce is too thin, mix a tbsp of flour with some water into a thin liquid and add it to the sauce. Bring it to the boil and thus thicken the sauce.

Notes

Classic Bavarian Beef Rolls go well together with Bavarian Spaetzle (a kind of noodles), pasta, bread dumplings or mashed potatoes as well as steamed vegetables or salad.