When I was a child, traditional German roulade was one of those delights that landed on our table almost every Sunday. Trust me; we couldn’t wait for Sunday to come! Along with homemade potato dumplings and red cabbage, stuffed beef rolls were inherent parts of a festive family dinner in our country.
When planning holiday meals for this season, I wanted to give the German stuffed beef rolls even more exceptional touch. I research the Teubner Sauces Cookbook, and I come up with an idea of serving the German roulade with an orange-apricot gravy. You will need to trust me on this – the results were overwhelming!
The lightly sweet apricot sauce compliments very well the savoury taste of the meat and the filling. It gives this dish a festive note and makes it phenomenal. Potato dumplings and Brussels sprouts complete it perfectly.
I have the best childhood memories one could ever imagine. Mostly because of food, of course! Both my mother and grandmother were great cooks, and we have a lot of family traditions where the food was involved. Every Sunday, after coming back from the church, we would sit and wait at the family table for the goodies that my grandmother or mother prepared. Sometimes they cooked roast turkey or chicken, but for holiday season, there was the stuffed beef rolls time.
Stuffed Beef Rolls Ingredients
Slices of beef topside make the best German roulade. Those cuts are the biggest once. Larger meat slices make the assembling easier. Further, this meat tastes fantastic when it gets tender. Cubbed onions, pickles, smoked bacon and a large spoon of mustard made the best filling. The more finely chopped the more filling fits in the roll. I am just saying!
To secure the stuffed beef rolls, my grandmother used thread. For the moment I enjoy using the Rouladenklammern because they are faster to use, but if you don’t have those, feel free to use toothpick or thread, as my grandma did. They will work just fine.
Apple red cabbage is one of the traditional side dishes to serve German roulade. Nevertheless, in this recipe, I have decided to use Brussel sprouts instead, as those vegetables are more savoury than sweet apple red cabbage. Additionally, the green colour makes the dish more lively.
Potato dumplings go very well with any saucy dish, so if you get a hands-on good once, that would be my first choice for the second side dish. Also Spätzle, German soft egg noodles, go very well with it.
The apricot sauce consists of orange juice, thyme, carrots and apricots. Each of those ingredients has a roll in it. The orange brings the freshness and sourness, apricots the sweetness, thyme spiciness and the carrots change the sauce consistency. Feel free to season it as you like, but please don’t end up eating the whole sauce before serving the rolls. I know is hard, I have been there! In the recipe below, I reveal my favourite mixture!
I still cannot tell if the best part of this dish is the stuffed beef roll or the apricot sauce. I know one thing – as soon as the apricot sauce was ready I couldn’t stop “trying it”. The problem was that the sauce didn’t need any improvement, I just loved it so much.
I am a huge fan of cooking traditional food, and I think that the authentic German stuffed beef roll recipe is perfect as it is. The apricot sauce variation was created for this Christmas season and hopefully, for many Christmas seasons to come.
This year we have enjoyed cooking the German Roast Goose once again! Check out the recipe for more inspiration!
German Roll Ups with Apricot Sauce
Equipment
Ingredients
Apricot Sauce
- 100 g soft, dried apricots about 9 apricots
- 100 ml orange juice
- 10 g burre manier if needed
- 100 g parsley root
- 100 g carrots
- 80 g onions 1 medium
- 2 branches fresh thyme or 1 tablespoon dried
- 400 ml beef fond or beef broth
German beef roll-ups
- 4 slices beef round steaks thin
- 4 tbsp mustard German Tommy Mustard
- 100 g bacon chopped
- 6 pickles chopped
- 1 onion chopped
- 2 tbsp oil sunflower
- 4 tbsp all-purpose flour
- salt
- pepper
Instructions
Stuff the beef roll-ups
- Pound out the beef slices until they are 5mm thin.
- Sprinkle both sides of the slice with salt.
- Season the innerside of the roll-ups with fresh pepper and spread 1 tablespoon of mustard over each beef slice.
- In the seperate bowl mixed chopped onions, pickles and bacon.
- Place 2 tbsp the onion-bacon-pickels mixture over each beef slice.
Roll the beef slices
- Fold the longer sides of the beef slice to make sure that the filling stays inside while cooking.
- Take one end of the slice and start folding up over the onion-bacon-pickles mixture.
- Continue rolling until its complitley rolled.
- Secure the end of the roll with skewer or use roulade clips. If needed secure also the sides with additional skewers.
- Prepare seperate plate with flour and coat all beef roll-ups with it. Don’t forget about the sides!
- Take large pot and preheat the sunflower oil in it.
- Fry the beef roll-ups on medium-high heat until they brown.
- Clean, peal and cut the carrots, onion and parsley root.
- Place the vegetables and thyme in the pot with beef rolls and add 400ml beef fond.
- Simmer in the pressure cooker for 30-35 minutes or in the normal pot for 50-55 minutes.
Prepare the apricot sauce
- Soak apricots in the orange juice.
- 15 minutes before the roll-ups are ready preheat the oven to 100 degrees.
- As soon as the roll-ups are ready put them in the oven so they don‘t cool down.
- Add the orange juice and the apricots to the sauce and blend it all together.
- Thicken the sauce with beurre manie.
- Check seasoning before serving them. If the sauce is too sweet add orange juice, if too sour more apricots.
- Serve with potato dumplings and cooked brossels sprouts.
