Making Rouladen (A German Beef Roll Dish) (Photo Essay)

(Pictures aren't that great and I'm not chef, so don't expect any pretty parsley or drizzles of color to make it look amazing....I made it as usual and didn't think about how good/bad it'd look, lol)

One of the dishes I like to make in the winter time is rouladen. Now it wasn't until a few years ago when one of the kids asked what it meant and where it came from, did I even know it was German, or how to even correctly spell it (Google doesn't have any suggestions for a word we've always pronounced rolladen, lol). Here's the wikipedia entry on Rouladen that offers some background and how it's traditionally made.

And here is how 'we' have always done it, a recipe that's been passed down and surely modified along the way, but we love it.....even though it sounds and looks gross, haha.

Beef Rouladen

Step 1: Lay out your strip of meat. It can be a variety of meats, but best of it's a tougher piece of meat like beef shank, or in this case, a round steak. Because it cooks for a while, there's no need in buying something overly expensive. You can tenderize it a bit if you want, but not necessary.

Step 2: Slather on mustard. Yep, just good old yellow mustard. I actually put a bit more on than what I show in the pictures because once I spread it out, it didn't look like quite enough, but I didn't want to stop to take another picture.

Step 3: Lay a few strips of raw bacon at one end.

Step 4: Place one spear of dill pickle at the same end. (I told you it sounded kinda gross, lol)

Step 5: Pour half a packet of dried onion soup mix on. Now you could just salt and pepper or season how ever you lie, but this is an easy way to bring lots of flavors to the dish.

Step 6: Roll it up! Secure with toothpicks to keep it from unrolling, or use string if you prefer.

Step 7: Place in the pan. I made two because I was feeding a family of six, but growing up, we only ever needed one with side dishes and sometimes had leftovers.

Step 8: Pour on a can of cream of mushroom soup (I used two cans for both)

Step 9: Sprinkle on the rest of the onion soup mix or season how you like. Again, I used 2 full packets because I was making double.

Step 10: Let it cook. See how the cream of mushroom soup and onion soup mix start to create a gravy?

Step 11: Take out of the oven and cut into inch-thick slices.

Step 12: Scoop on some of the "gravy" from the pan and enjoy! Strangely a hit with kids. Sometimes it's better to not tell them what it is the first time....and other times, they love it even more if they get to help make it first!