Beef Rouladen with Shredded Cabbage and Roasted Potatoes

After a short (read: way too long) hiatus, I've finally returned to making some fancy weekend foods and sharing the results with the world.  To my loyal fan(s) out there, apologies for the delay.  This week I kicked off the blogging by preparing a neat German dish of Beef Rouladen.  Having never had or even seen this dish before, one might find themselves asking; why?  Well, short and simple, it popped up on a reddit feed a couple weeks ago, and looked cool while also looking super simple to make.  And I do like simple things that end up looking like they require a lot of work.  All in all, it was a fairly straight forward dish, and I think turned out looking fairly tasty.

Beef Rouladen
-2 slices of beef -Dijon Mustand-Bacon-Paprika-Sliced Onion-Sliced Dill Pickle-1 tbsp Vegetable Oil-2 tbsp Butter-1/4 Cup Flour-3 Cups Chicken Broth-Salt and Pepper

As I mentioned earlier, the beauty of this meal is in how easy it was to prepare.  For the meat, I simply laid the slices of beef out and seasoned with enough salt and pepper.  How much is enough you ask?  I have no idea.  I always seem to put enough that I know I put salt and pepper, without it looking like it's more seasoning than meat.  I then spread on the Dijon Mustard across the beef, and then layered on 2 strips of bacon along the meat making sure that the bacon ends just about a half inch before either side of the meat so that when I rolled the beef it didn't awkwardly stick out.  Next, I spread the sliced onions and dill pickle across the meat, making sure to leave only one slice of dill pickle at the beginning, middle and end.  Didn't want to overload with dill pickle, as I've heard dill can really over power a dish.  I then wrapped and tied the meat into a roll, and proceeded to sear the meat in a hot pot with vegetable oil, just to brown the outside.  Once browned, I then removed the meat and replaced with butter and flour in order to get a nice roux going.  I added in the broth and cranked up the heat to get a good simmer going  and let the gravy reduce just a bit.  I then popped the meat back into the gravy to let it cook for about 50-60 minutes.  

Roasted Potatoes

-2 cups diced potatoes

-Cinnamon

-Brown Sugar

-Avocado Oil

My favorite way to have potatoes.... smothered in sugar. haha.  Really easy recipe here, I simply turned the over up to 450F, tossed the potatoes into a roasting pan with some oil, sugar and cinnamon, and let the oven do it's thing for about an hour or so, or until the potatoes are cooked.  I did mix them around every 10-15 in order to make sure all the potatoes got coated in the sugar/spice mixture, but other than that, these potatoes are virtually hands off cooking.  And super tasty.

For the plating of the dish, I went "all out".  In the sense that I bought a fancy bowl to present it in.  That's right, no more simple plates for this blog.  I laid down a layer of the sauteed green cabbage (Yes, I know I didn't describe the cooking of the cabbage above.... nor will I.  Apparently this recipe stays a secret), and then placed to of the meat pieces front facing and smothered with the gravy it was cooked in.  I didn't know what to do with the potatoes, and I basically just dumped a bunch of them behind the meat.  Probably should have thought it out a little more, but I think the dish turned out looking half way decent.