Whenever I see chicken or pork roulades in magazines, they
always look so neatly made and as if a lot of time and effort went into making
them. I’m not very good with fiddly food; so I knew my patience was going to
wear thin had this pork roulade experiment become complicated.
I do believe though, when you step into the kitchen, you
need to be in the right head space. There are so many things that can go wrong.
Whenever I’m in a bad mood and busy in the kitchen I always seem to burn my
fingers as I forget to use a dish clothe to handle a hot dish, spill oil over
my hands, or almost chop my fingers off when trying to slice and dice.
You would think being in the kitchen I would automatically
be happy, but there are those few occasions when I’m not. The only reason for
this is because I am hungry. Simply put, my hunger pangs go past the ‘easy
going stage’ and escalate to a ‘if you don’t feed me now I will bite your head off’
stage. When I reach this stage my cooking does tend to suffer, and it doesn’t
help I’m not very patient; there are moments when a minute microwave session
gets too drawn out for me. I know you are struggling to picture this, innocent
dear Megan, snappy and angry… Never… Well, I have big “food-swings”, and I
admit, it ain’t pretty.
Luckily, when I started experimenting with this pork fillet,
my appetite was in check and my demeanour didn’t resemble that of a hyena. However,
I think even if you’re looking for something easy to do on a Sunday afternoon,
this pork roulade is the way to go. The only challenge is cutting the meat
right; it helps having a super sharp knife. Don’t let the posh nosh look fool
you, but this recipe is really easy and requires little fussing over once assembled.
Ingredients:
500g Pork fillet
1 Punnet button mushrooms, finely diced
1 tsp Crushed garlic
1 Red Onion, finely chopped
1 Cup Cheddar cheese, grated
1 -2 tsp Thyme, chopped
1 Cube Chicken stock
½ Cup dry white wine
Salt & Pepper
Oil for fryingInstructions:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- In a pot, fry up the onion until soft, add the mushrooms and only then add the garlic and thyme, salt and pepper.
- Once the onion, and mushrooms are softer, take off the heat and set aside.
- Slice the pork fillet lengthways. Start from the bottom; slice through the meat, before reaching the other end, turn the meat so it becomes a ‘never-ending slicing action’. Unravel the meat so it lies flat on the countertop. Cover with cling wrap and hammer gently with a rolling pin or meat mallet.
- Once the pork is thin and flat, take the cling wrap off. Season the pork fillet with some salt and pepper.
- Place the onion, mushroom and garlic mixture over the entire surface of the flat pork. Remember to leave a bit of the mixture to add as a topping.
- Gently start rolling the pork back into its original shape.
- To secure the meat in place you can tie string around it, or you can gently place it in a pan and handle with care.
- Once in the pan add the chicken stock and wine, to ensure the meat does not dry out.
- Place in the preheated oven for about 30 – 45 minutes; or until cooked through. Turn the meat halfway through the cooking time.
- Take out and allow to sit for 5 minutes and then serve.
- Top the fillet with the rest of the onion, mushroom, garlic and thyme mixture.
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