Roulade of Pork Loin... Easier to make than to pronounce!

OK, so here's another French word that you can now add to your vocabulary. Roulade sounds like a complicated process that only the well cured chefs can create in a fancy and well equipped commercial kitchen. Wrong! Roulade is as easy as it gets when it comes to making fancy stuff. From the French word rouler, means to roll like a rolling of kitchen paper towels. You take a thick cut of meat, whether it be beef, pork, chicken, or fish, and cut it open, thus rolling it out. Fill it with a filling of various ingredients, and then roll it back shut to its original shape, then tie it with kitchen twine. That's it, all that is need to know. Do you think I would have brought a procedure into this blog that required a science degree to accomplish, thus compromising my theme of simplicity? Not on your life.

Today, I will show you how to prepare a roulade of pork, albeit with a twist. Once filled, we will not roll it up, but put it back together just as we found it. This preparation comes in two parts. The first part is creating the filling for this pork roast. The second part will consist of preparing the roast with the filling and then baking it. This recipe has an Asian flair in addition to the French, as I have included some Asian ingredients for the filling. Here is what we need:

2 lb. Top Loin Pork Roast, boneless
3/4 cup of Marsala Wine (sweet version)
1/4 cup of water
3/4 cup of bread crumbs, finely processed
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 shallots, finely chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
4 medium brown mushrooms, finely chopped
1/4 cup of olive oil
2 teaspoons of sesame oil
2 teaspoons of ginger paste
1/2 teaspoon of garlic paste
1/2 teaspoon of pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
Butcher's cotton twine (or kitchen twine)

Let's make the filling to start with, that way we can allow it to cool a bit before we add it to our roast. Prepare all your vegetables and spices, slicing, dicing, cutting, and measuring. In a frying pan, heat the olive oil on medium high heat. Saute the shallots, garlic, and pepper flakes, reducing heat to medium. Next, add the chopped mushrooms and saute for another minute or so. Now add the bread crumbs and stir well so everything is well mixed, taking about 30 seconds to do so. Add the wine and reduce heat to low. If you need to, add the water and stir. Remove from heat and transfer mixture to a mixing bowl.

Add to your mixing bowl, the parsley, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil, 1 teaspoon of ginger paste, black pepper, and garlic paste, and mix well with a wooden spoon. Begin using the spoon to make a ball with the mixture as illustrated. Set aside.

Preheat your oven to 400. Now let's get a sauce ready so that we can brush on the meat later. Combine 1 tablespoon of ginger paste, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil, and the 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. Mix well to form a paste. Add 1 tablespoon of water to dilute the paste a bit. Set it aside.

Next, we will get our roast ready. With the fat side down, begin to slice down the center of the roast lengthwise. Slice down until about 1/2 inch from the bottom. Do not slice all the way through! Now spread the roast open and on each half, make two slits evenly apart, slicing down to within 1/2 inch of the bottom. Do this for the left and right sides. You should now be able to flatten your roast open.

Take your ball of filling and slice into 5 equal parts. Proceed to to fill each cavity of the roast, careful to not fill completely to the edge, that way, when you close it up, it won't squeeze out of each end. Once you have filled the cavities, gently put your roast back together again. Realize that since you've added "stuffing", the roast will be fatter around. Take kitchen twine (cotton) and cut 5 or 6 even length pieces long enough to go around the roast. At this point, there is a professional way of twining a roast with one single string; however, I always have problems with that, so I find it easier to just cut separate pieces. Begin by tying the ends about an inch in from each end. Be careful to not tie it too tight around so as not to squeeze the filling out. But be sure it will securely keep the roast closed up. Now that you 've done each end, tie the remaining strings around the roast, evenly apart, like the illustration. Once your roast is all tied up, cut any excess string and turn your roast over, cut side down.

In a frying pan, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat. Sear your roast, turning it 1/4 turn about every 3 minutes. Transfer to a baking dish and place in the oven on the middle rack and reduce heat to 350. Bake for 1 hour for a 2 pound roast. About 15 minutes before completion, brush your basting mixture to cover the outside of the roast. Continue to bake for 15 more minutes. Your roast should be done to medium. Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes. Cut strings off and with a sharp knife, slice even slices and set on a serving platter. Enjoy this roast. It should still be moist and succulent, full of flavors, with the hints of sesame and ginger. I would serve this with the Asian Sesame Noodle Salad that I posted earlier.