Chef Joost
Aardappelschotel met Gehakt
A plain name for a quietly clever dish: fresh mince, sweet fried onion, nutmeg, and mashed potato baked until the top goes golden and the table goes silent.
Culinary Explorer
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Runderrollade
Created by
The Sunday roast of the Dutch family table: beef rolled, tied, browned in butter, and carved at Christmas into pink slices with gravy dark enough to remember the pan.
Main Dishes
Dutch
Christmas
Special Occasion
Dinner Party
25 min
Active Time
1 hr 20 min cook•2 hr 15 min total
Yield6 servings
In my grandmother's second notebook, rollade is written with the kind of brevity that assumes competence in the reader: beef, salt, pepper, butter, thread. That was all. The missing words lived at the table, where the roast arrived tied like a parcel and my grandfather sharpened the carving knife with a seriousness he otherwise reserved for tax letters.
The name already tells you the method. Rollade comes into Dutch through French roulade, from rouler, to roll, and the Dutch ear hears rollen, to roll, without needing a dictionary. A flat piece of beef is seasoned, rolled around itself, tied tight enough to behave, then browned and roasted slowly. But let me tell you a secret: the ceremony is larger than the difficulty. This is not restaurant work. This is a butcher's roast, a family table, and a pan of gravy that knows exactly where it came from.
The important thing is restraint. Brown the outside properly, then roast gently and stop before the centre turns grey. Beef rollade wants patience more than fuss: a hot pan for colour, a moderate oven for tenderness, and a rest long enough for the juices to settle back into the meat. Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple. If you can tie a parcel and use a thermometer, you can give Christmas its roast.
Rollade entered Dutch home cooking through the French-influenced kitchen vocabulary of the nineteenth century, but it became thoroughly domestic in twentieth-century household cookbooks such as C.J. Wannee's Amsterdam cooking school editions, where tied roasts were taught as practical feast-day meat. Dutch butchers helped make the dish common by selling pork, veal, and beef rollades already rolled and netted for Sunday dinner and Christmas. The dish shows a characteristically Dutch compromise: a formal-looking roast built from an economical cut, made festive by tying, browning, and careful carving rather than extravagance.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
beef rollade
Quantity
1.2kg
tied or netted, preferably from topside or silverside
fine sea salt
Quantity
2 teaspoons
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1 teaspoon
mild mustard
Quantity
1 teaspoon
dried thyme
Quantity
1 teaspoon
ground nutmeg
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
butter
Quantity
40g
neutral oil
Quantity
1 tablespoon
onion
Quantity
1 large
sliced
carrot
Quantity
1
sliced
bay leaves
Quantity
2
dry red wine or beef stock
Quantity
150ml
beef stock
Quantity
250ml
appelstroop or dark syrup (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
cornstarch (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| beef rolladetied or netted, preferably from topside or silverside | 1.2kg |
| fine sea salt | 2 teaspoons |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1 teaspoon |
| mild mustard | 1 teaspoon |
| dried thyme | 1 teaspoon |
| ground nutmeg | 1/2 teaspoon |
| butter | 40g |
| neutral oil | 1 tablespoon |
| onionsliced | 1 large |
| carrotsliced | 1 |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| dry red wine or beef stock | 150ml |
| beef stock | 250ml |
| appelstroop or dark syrup (optional) | 1 teaspoon |
| cornstarch (optional)mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water | 1 teaspoon |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy braadpan or ovenproof casserole with lid
- •Kitchen thermometer
- •Kitchen string if tying the rollade yourself
- •Sharp carving knife
Instructions
- 1
Season the beef
Take the rollade from the refrigerator 45 minutes before cooking so the chill leaves the centre. Pat it dry, then rub it all over with salt, pepper, mustard, thyme, and nutmeg. The nutmeg is not decoration; it is the old Dutch spice cupboard doing its quiet work.
- 2
Brown it well
Heat the oven to 160C. Set a heavy braadpan, a Dutch roasting pan, over medium-high heat and melt the butter with the oil. Brown the rollade on every side, turning it patiently until the outside is deep brown and smells nutty. Do not hurry this. The oven cooks the beef, but the pan gives you the flavour.
- 3
Build the gravy
Lift the beef onto a plate. Add the onion, carrot, and bay leaves to the pan and cook for 5 minutes, scraping the browned bits from the bottom. Pour in the wine or stock and let it bubble for a minute, then add the remaining beef stock and the appelstroop if using. That little spoon of dark sweetness is very Dutch: not sugary, just rounded.
- 4
Roast gently
Return the rollade to the pan, sitting it on top of the vegetables. Cover with a lid or foil and roast for 45 to 60 minutes, basting once or twice, until the centre reaches 55C for pink beef or 60C for barely pink. If you do not own a thermometer, buy one before you buy a better knife. Guesswork is expensive here.
A butcher-netted rollade may cook slightly faster than a hand-tied one because it is held very evenly. Start checking the temperature after 40 minutes. - 5
Rest the roast
Move the rollade to a board, tent it loosely, and let it rest for 20 minutes. This is not idleness. The juices are moving back through the meat, and carving too soon gives the board what should belong to the slices.
- 6
Finish and carve
Strain the pan juices into a small saucepan, pressing the vegetables well. Simmer until the gravy tastes deep and glossy; thicken with the cornstarch mixture only if it needs help. Cut away the string or netting, carve the rollade into neat slices, and serve with the gravy, boiled potatoes, red cabbage, or stoofpeertjes, pears stewed with cinnamon and wine.
Chef Tips
- •Ask the butcher for a beef rollade from topside or silverside, tied evenly and not overfilled. A tidy shape cooks more evenly than a grand one.
- •For Christmas, serve it with rodekool met appeltjes, red cabbage with apples, and stoofpeertjes, little stewed pears. The sweet-sour fruit and cabbage do the work that a heavy sauce would only make dull.
- •Do not carve at the table unless your knife is truly sharp. The ritual is lovely, yes, but ragged slices are still ragged slices. Carve in the kitchen if that gives the roast the respect it deserves.
Advance Preparation
- •Season the rollade up to 12 hours ahead and keep it covered in the refrigerator; bring it toward room temperature before browning.
- •The roast is best carved after its first rest, but leftovers keep well for three days refrigerated and make proper cold sandwiches with mustard.
- •The gravy can be made one day ahead from the strained pan juices and reheated gently while the sliced beef rests.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 215g)
Calories
410 calories
Total Fat
22 g
Saturated Fat
9 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
11 g
Cholesterol
150 mg
Sodium
1250 mg
Total Carbohydrates
6 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
45 g
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