Cut thin slices from the round steak; then chop 1 onion, 2 tomatoes, some celery, parsley and 2 hard-boiled eggs and season with salt and pepper. Mix with butter and fine bread-crumbs; then spread the mixture on the steak, and roll up. Sprinkle with flour; lay closely in a pan of hot dripping; cover and let simmer until tender. Serve hot, garnished with olives and parsley.
A braised beef roulade of the kind found across Spain and Latin America, written for cooks who were assumed to know how long a rolled steak takes to go tender. The original gives no quantities, no times and no yield, so the notes below fill those gaps.
- The hinge: slice and pound"Thin slices from the round steak" means cutlets cut across the grain, then flattened to about 1/4 inch between sheets of plastic. Round is lean and unforgiving; if the slices are thick they will tighten around the filling and stay tough no matter how long they simmer.
- Quantities to work fromAbout 1 1/2 lb of round, cut into four to six slices, takes the filling as written: 1 onion, 2 tomatoes, a rib or two of celery, a handful of parsley, 2 hard-boiled eggs, roughly 1/2 cup breadcrumbs and 2 tablespoons butter. Serves four.
- Tie or skewer the rollsThe recipe says only to roll up and lay them closely in the pan, relying on the tight fit to hold them. Kitchen twine or toothpicks are more reliable, and "lay closely" is still good advice, since crowded rolls do not unwind.
- DrippingRendered beef or pork fat saved from roasting. Any neutral oil, or beef fat you render yourself, does the same job; the point is a fat hot enough to brown the floured surface before the lid goes on.
- Brown first, then coverThe flour and the hot dripping suggest browning may have been taken for granted, though the recipe does not say so. Give the rolls a few minutes uncovered on each side before adding the lid, or the flour simply pastes itself to the meat.
- Simmering time"Until tender" for rolled round means 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours at a bare simmer. Add a splash of stock, wine or the tomato juices if the pan runs dry; the covered pan should hold a shallow amount of liquid throughout.
- The eggsChopped hard-boiled egg in the stuffing is characteristic rather than optional here, and it appears in the same position in Spanish and Argentine matambre-style rolls. It will crumble when the rolls are sliced, which is expected.
- ServingLet the rolls rest five minutes, remove the twine, and cut into rounds so the spiral shows. Reduce the pan juices for a minute or two and spoon over; the olives and parsley are the whole garnish as written.
Rolled and stuffed beef is one of the oldest ways of making a lean, tough cut go further, and versions of it turn up under many names around the Mediterranean and across Latin America — filletes rellenos in Spain, Italian braciole, the Argentine matambre arrollado that is stuffed with much the same onion, parsley and hard-boiled egg. What marked this one as "Spanish" may have been the tomato, olives and parsley rather than any particular regional technique, though the book does not say. The dated entries point to a dish-a-day arrangement, each tagged with a nation; the nationalities are best read as flavor labels rather than claims of authenticity.