Beef Roulade

A simple stylish dish using a cut of beef that requires a bit of experience to cook well. I got my butcher to butterfly the steak. We discussed which direction to roll it and his advice was to not worry about grain but go for aesthetics.

I brought the steak home rolled in the direction suggested by the butcher, 

as a reminder of how to do it.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Salt and pepper
600 g hanger steak, in a single piece, butterflied (I got my butcher to do it, and it's called onglet in French)
2 red peppers
A handful of baby spinach leaves or a piece of chard leaf, washed and dried
6 thin slices of dry cured ham or bacon
Pesto (preferably freshly made)
2 tbsp finely grated parmesan cheese (or similar hard Italian cheese)

Method:

1. Whisk the oil, vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper in a shallow dish.
2. Lay the steak out in the dish, turn it over to make sure it's all covered in marinade and set aside for a few hours.
3. Char the peppers by sitting them directly on flaming gas burners, turning every few seconds with metal tongs, then set aside to cool.
4. Scrape the charred skin off the peppers, core them and cut into quarters.
5. Heat the oven to 180C.
6. Take the steak out of the marinade and lay it out flat. Reserve the marinade.
7. Spread the steak with pesto, then cover it with slices of ham, followed by the spinach leaves, then pepper slices. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and season.
8. Roll the steak around its stuffing. The roughly rectangular piece of steak will have two raggedy sides and two fairly straight. Roll it from one raggedy side to the other for the neatest effect, so that the straight edges form even spirals each end.
9. Tie the roulade in about three places.
10. Put the roulade in a baking tray, pour over the reserved marinade and cook for 30 minutes in the oven.
11. At the end of 30 minutes turn the oven off and let the roulade rest in the cooling oven for 15 minutes.
12. Thickly slice the roulade. Serves 3.

 The steak marinating.

The steak was from grass fed Blonde d'Aquitaine cattle from Chateauroux, purchased from the butcher in Preuilly. The vegetables came from my local organic market garden, Les Jardins Vergers de la Petite Rabaudière, on the outskirts of Preuilly. They sell from the farm every Tuesday evening and at the market in Preuilly every Thursday morning. Instead of peppers, I used homemade pickled mild chillies (piment d'Espelette) grown at the Jardins Vergers. You could use bottled peppers, but this dish needs to be generously salted to counter the sweetness. The cheese was Gran Mulino (uncertified parmesan style), purchased on special at the supermarket. The pesto was from a bottle, also from the supermarket, and was not very good. The bacon was from a frozen bulk catering pack of British smoked finely sliced bacon. It was good quality for not much money, as purchases from Noz often are.

Bacon and slivers of pickled chilli as part of the stuffing.

A piece of chard leaf cut to size, grated hard cheese and some salt and pepper are the final layers.

Rolled and tied ready for the oven.

Yum

**************************************

For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.