Stuffed Beef Rolls

Chef Live
Luciano Pellegrini
With Chef Jenna Marchese

Beef Rolls Stuffed with Bacon, Onions, Raisins, Pine Nuts with Broccoli and Mushrooms

Luciano Pellegrini: First and foremost we’re going to start working on our stuffing. We’re going to do some beef rolls stuffed with onions, peanuts, veggies and bacon. We’re going to put our stuffing stuff on the pan. Now these are typical—well typical—not typical but it is a very common dish in the South called Broccolis beef roast and what else?

So, I'm actually cutting here the quarter of an inch diced with the onion and I'm actually going to introduce some olive oil to a couple of pans. We’re also going to get our side dish for the beef going as well because we’re just going to braise that broccoli and mushroom. If you don’t mind put that just for me and here we go. Make sure that the onion doesn’t burn.

I'm going to slice some garlic for four dishes. I'm going to add a little garlic to that as well.

Jenna Marchese: Both pans?

Luciano Pellegrini: Um-hmm. So I cut my broccoli until they are very small rosettes until they break apart just like that, I’m adding some raisins to my stuffing. In our mushroom mixture, we’re going add some regular champingnon and some shiitake mushrooms.

And right here we have some smoked bacon. I'm going to cut it in the same size of the onion so about the quarter of an inch dice.

Jenna Marchese: We need a little more butter in here.

Luciano Pellegrini: Okay double time Jenna. Very thing also cooking is thing that you feel the recipe can only be instructions, boundaries and then again I can almost make it the way I like it but then again it might not be the way you like it, so you're interpretation becomes very important.

There you go that’s why I've been doing it for years. So I made my bacon right over there, the other going very slowly the raisin. Did you flavor that at all Jenna if you want to?

Jenna Marchese: Yes.

Luciano Pellegrini Here you go a little pepper, little salt, you got the salt there. And for this kind of dish and when cooking mates my favorite herbs are usually sage and rosemary.

Jenna Marchese: Do we add pepper in this dish?

Luciano Pellegrini: Absolutely, why not. Okay, beef rolls, beef rolls used to be a recipe that was made with some of the crapiest—this is all made in your head just you know—then roll them up give some flavor and then just braise for a couple of hour. So obviously now there's some inventing dishes is not as easy so you can kind of revisit the old once that you know were for so many years anyway.

So we’re going to use today fillet mignon to do this all, so these are kind of the Cadillac of beef rolls. So I'm going to cut my fillet in about a quarter of an inch thick, it seems to be—

Jenna Marchese: There we go.

Luciano Pellegrini: Perfect, thank you. We are going to take this one and put it over here. So here to my needs I am going to add some peanuts. Again, raisins, peanuts, those are the flavors of Sicily so no need to put a meat tenderizer when you use fillet mignon. No need for the meat tenderizer your fist will be just fine. So if you're going to see everything is nicely caught over here so we’re just going to add a little bit of everything, just a little tiny bit on each slice—which we are going to move this pan here.

So again, I'm always start with hot pan, I'm going to—before I even start I'm going to put on my pan and then it gets up to a temperature and then I can always kind of weight it a little bit and cool it down if it’s too cold or too hot. I'm going to flavor a little bit salt and I'm going to rollup my rolls in like this. That’s it.

Jenna Marchese: You see how the pan starting to smoke just a little bit so I just want to lower the heat just a bit.

Luciano Pellegrini: Thank you very much Jenna.

Jenna Marchese: Do you want me to add some more, chef?

Luciano Pellegrini: Not yet.

Jenna Marchese: Okay.

Luciano Pellegrini: Now, if you were to use a not so special kind of meat you may want to actually use a toothpick to secure the roll especially if you want to want to cook the rolls for a longer period of time. You would basically go to color it on both sides and take them out because we do kind of want to serve them medium.

Jenna Marchese: If you do this dish with like chicken or turkey if you wanted to.

Luciano Pellegrini: Absolutely.

Jenna Marchese: Would you use the same ingredients?

Luciano Pellegrini: As long as it doesn’t use the bacon.

Jenna Marchese: Okay.

Luciano Pellegrini: Don’t give up the bacon; give up the beef if you must but not the bacon. Anyway here we are we get ready and are set to the pan again we add a little bit of butter and we’re going to need a pair of tongs. So whenever I—let’s say you don’t have a counter next to your stove you want to prepare your stuff and then come take the food and bring it by the pan. Don’t always go like back and forth and—because once the pan is hot and you got to put in your stuff.

So I don’t know if you have noticed but you know I've always been seasoning a little bit each step with the way never last and just put a lot of salt in it. You want to have a clean dish nearby. Because usually you put it in the mixtures and it kind of creates that fold then it kind of puts it in plate so you always kind of want to be gentle about it when you turn. So and then if one roll opens up, it isn’t a perfect sign, it doesn’t really matter but that such not—

Thank you very much. And then I'm going to add some red wine. I learn wine reviews, I am putting a little sage and rosemary to my sauce and then the here I have some chicken stock but it can any kind of stock. And again, just to add some volume. And then what I'm going to do, I don’t know if you notice the beef has let go off some of its own juices. I’m going add everything back to the pan and let it all steam up together for a couple of minutes.

Jenna Marchese: So why do you use chicken stock as opposed to beef stock or veal stock?

Luciano Pellegrini: Well, in common I use the—exactly beef-based stock and then a glass of veal, the same, chicken, the same but when you don’t have a particular one you kind of hold back in the chicken because it is the most flavorful of the bunch.

So let’s see what kind of a job Jenna did in flavoring this side dish. Very good! I'm going to make some of my garnish right here using a square plate for this presentation and about the chicken this thing. So then, overall I put the beef all of the three minutes I mean it is very thin and it cooks in no time so I don’t want it overcooked it becomes a little dry and tough.

And as we did all day today, we finish off with a little bit of fresh ground pepper, a little sprinkle most favorite Hawaiian sea salt.

Jenna Marchese: It also called volcanic salt or thick salt it’s all the same.

Luciano Pellegrini: It just—the name is—it just so long, the name is so long sometimes you say Hawaiian sea salt, volcanic sea salt, or not. And the garnish we use again, the same fresh herbs we use to flavor the dish.

I hope you enjoyed. Well my pleasure, my pleasure, and Jenna here.

Jenna Marchese: Thank you.


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