Rinderrouladen-Beef olives in a paprika mushroom sauce in the slow cooker

I was buying some steak at my local butchers and piled up right next to the piece of entrecote from which the steaks where going to be cut, a good 1.5cm is my standard entrecote weighing in at 350 -400g, were Rinderrouladen. I said they look very nice ,I think I will have 2 of them.

As the next couple of days would be a bit hectic, I thought I would cook in advance for a couple of meals.

The Rouladen

so the ingedient  for 2 people are:

2 large Rouladen cut from the rump of a well hung piece of beef (hee hee)

The rest automatically follows in varying proportions depending on supply and demand.

100g speck or airdried ham (I made one of each)

2 tea spoons of mustard (I used a one from the firm Altenburger, it is specially made for rouladen)

12 fresh sage leaves

1 Spreewalder gerkin sliced longways into thin sticks

1 banana shallot sliced the same as the gurkin

Salt and pepper

For the sauce.

1 good handful of freeze dried vegetables

100gr  cooked beechwood smoked pork belly diced fine

2 teaspoons of marigold vegetable bouillion

1 level tea spoon of tomato paste

1 heaped te spoon of mild paprika paste

1 roasted paprika (out of a jar) sliced in strips

1 onion diced

2 cloves of garlic diced

50g of schinken speck (cured  raw ham but with a good layer of fat)

150gr of small mushrooms (or lager ones, diced or sliced)
1 table spoon of oil

1 gerkin diced

1 bay leaf and sprig each of rosemary, thyme and oregano


Lay the beef out on a board, salt and pepper both sides.

Spread each with the mustard.

Top of this comes the speck or air dried ham (some use boiled ham) on top of this place the sage leaves
Now place half of the sliced gerkin and shallot at one end of the roulade.

fold the  long sides inward  to make a uniform oblong, then roll it up to make the rouladen form.

Pin the end flaps with a needle (or tie with kitchen thread, or there are special rings on the market to make this even easier) and do the other exactly like the first or even better as you now have got the hang of it.

Put the freeze dried in the slow cooker (SC), along with the cured  cooked belly

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onion, then the speck, then the garlic, saute all together until the onion is translucent and the speck just starting to colour.

Add this to the SC on top of the rest of the sauce ingredients, leaving as much of the oil behind as possible.

Put the bouillion stock along with the tomato and paprika paste into a measuring jug and fill with 330 ml of boiling water, mix well and pour this into the SC.

In the same pan that the onions etc. had been fried in now brown the rouladen all round.

Add these to the SC, add the sliced paprika and the small mushrooms whole. Add all of the herbs.

Put the rinder rouladen on top of all the lot and push down as far as possible (don't worry about them not being covered in liquid as they will cook in the moist air that is formed under the sealed SC cover.

Now pop on the lid  set to high and leave to cook for 3 hours or 4 or 5 it doesn't matter as the SC will not dry out)

I made champ, Savoy cabbage in a speck, onion, crème fraiche sauce to go with this along with some fresh minted broad beens.

It was a nice change from the currywurst, bratwurst, chips and frikadellen over the past few days, that I had eaten on the hoof at various carnival parades.

Savoy with shallot, speck in a crème fraiche sauce.

Fry some speck (or smoked bacon) along with a sliced shallot, very finely slice some Savoy cabbage add this and saute briefly (I like mine still with a bit of crunch) add a carton (150g) of crème fraiche. salt and pepper and a few scrapings of nutmeg (I like nutmeg, so a couple more for me). Bubble up and it's ready to serve)

Champ (no secrets here)

Boiled the floury spuds in well salted water  until just starting to break, pour off the water (I boil mine in a sieve attachment), return back to the hot pan , cover with a clean tea towel and place the lid on top, this will remove any excess moisture. next squeeze through a ricer, add some butter and a little cream, add a good handful of finely sliced scallions (spring onions) salt and peper to taste.  Turn out into a dish , make a well in the middle and fill with melted butter.

Fresh minted broad beans.

Freshly shelled broad beans, boiled in salted water along with  a desert spoon of dried mint (I find that dried mint works better in this case)

And as they say in Germany Guten Appetit