Sunday Recipe. . .

Today, we take a step beyond basic culinary skills to visit some intermediate techniques that are surely to impress at your next dinner party.

Introducing the "roulade".

A roulade is basically a piece of meat rolled around some type of filling. The finished product, if executed properly, can be a creation of delicious beauty to the eye and the palette, as it is often said that people eat with their eyes first. . .

Oven Roasted Pork Loin Roulade w/spinach, mushrooms, caramelized onions and water chestnuts

1-3# Pork Loin
3 medium onions, sliced
1# assorted mushrooms, sliced
3 bunches of fresh spinach, stems removed and chopped finely
1 can of water chestnuts, chopped coarsely
olive oil, as necessary
salt and pepper, to taste

Marinade

6 ounces olive oil
1 Tbsp. each rosemary, thyme and sage
juice of 1 lemon
juice of 1 minneola (tangerine/grapefruit hybrid) or orange juice

Begin by caramelizing the onions slowly over medium heat in olive oil. Add a pinch of salt. Be sure not to burn as you want the onions to develop a nice brown hue as the sugars in the onion cook. Remove and set aside.

To the same pan, add more olive oil and saute the mushrooms until they also are caramelized. Salt and pepper to taste. Set aside in a small colander so that we can reuse the juices later for the accompanying sauce.

In a clean pan, saute the spinach leaves and chopped stems for 1 minute in olive oil over medium high heat. Salt and pepper to taste, set aside in a colander, allow to drain and squeeze the leaves gently to remove excess moisture. Reserve this liquid also.

In a separate sauce pan, combine the olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper and heat over medium low heat until the herbs begin to bubble slightly. This will release the fragrant oils. Remove from the heat and cool. Add the citrus juices.

Now the fun part. . .



Here is our pork loin:

Begin by cutting along the lower third of the height of the loin in long, consistent strokes with a boning knife. Cut lengthwise, but also move horizontally through the meat, but not all the way through. Stop about a half inch from the opposite side.

Your loin will now fold open like a book and we have one more cut to make for a complete tri-fold butterfly. In the middle there should be a thick portion of the meat where we begin with the second cut. Try to guide the knife approximately half way up the height of the meat at this point, again cutting through to the 1/2 inch termination. This is the harder cut to make and be sure you are slow and careful. Any cut completely through the meat will yield a nice hole with the ingredients of the roulade slipping out.

Below, we see the loin completely butterflied, covered with plastic wrap and being pounded to produce a uniform height as well as providing some tenderizing of the meat. I was using a wine bottle, you can achieve better results with a meat mallet. Pound the meat until it is approximately 1/2 inch or more in thickness. Pounding the meat thinner will produce a nicer pinwheel effect, but I like it to be thicker in an effort to retain the juiciness of the cut. The loin section of pork is notorious for overcooking quickly and a thicker cut will not do so quite as easily.

After pounding, I spooned two tablespoons of the infused citrus herb oil on the meat then added the layers of onions, mushrooms, spinach and finally the chestnuts. Alternatively, you could combine the three ingredients together or layer them individually as I have done. One could add bread crumbs to the ingredients, two beaten eggs and a little chicken stock to make a delicious stuffing as well. Also, you may substitute a variety of ingredients such as roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, a tapenade of Niçoise olives and sun-dried tomatoes or various precooked winter greens such as chard or collards in place of the spinach. Only your imagination can hold you back.

Once the ingredients have been applied, starting at the thinest end, roll the meat up like a pinwheel and secure with butcher's twine as seen below. Salt and pepper the meat and spoon over the remainder of the infused oil. Let marinate for several hours in the fridge.

When you are ready to roast, preheat your oven to 450°F and place a rack in a roasting pan. On the stove heat a large sautuese or wide sautoir (something large enough to accommodate the loin) to medium high heat, add olive oil and sear the roast on all sides. Transfer to the roasting pan and put in the oven. Roast at 450 for about 30 to 40 minutes, basting with the juices from the marinade every 10 minutes or so. For the basting liquid I used the leftover marinade and one flavorful porter beer and this eventually became part of the final sauce. After 40 minutes reduce the heat to 350-375 and cook, basting occasionally until a meat thermometer indicates at least 155°F. Once removed from the oven the meat will carry over about 5 to 10 degrees, so undercooking slightly is preferable. Cook to 145 if you like a little pink still.

Remove the loin from the oven and let it rest for at least 15 minutes to let the juices redistribute in the meat. If you were to cut it now, the meat would look like Niagara Falls and taste like a rubber shoe.

While the meat is resting, remove the rack from the roasting pan and place the pan on a burner on the stove. When the pan is hot, add a half cup of the beer to deglaze the pan are lift all of the tasty bits in the bottom, strain this into a sauce pan. Add to this liquid the leftover spinach and mushroom juices and reduce by two thirds, all the while removing any fat which rises to the surface. To finish the sauce, remove the sauce from the heat and let it cool slightly.

Whisk in chunks of cold butter until the sauce increases in volume and has a thick shiny consistency. If you see tiny broken bits of white floating around your sauce and the sauce appears oily, then you have broken the butter. Butter sauces should never be heated above 140° as the solids will separate and you will lose the immense body created by emulsifying the butter into the liquid. Adjust the seasonings, add a bit of diced chestnut and some more fresh herbs, plate the meat, serve with your favorite starches and vegetables and look out world!! There is a shoemaker on the loose!!