Beef Roulade with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Tapenade

I made this rather fancy dish on a whim. I had a big piece of discount beef (yum?) and a bunch of leftovers from Tapas Sunday, and I decided that beef stuffed with tapenade, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, and lots of garlic actually sounded really good.

It was kind of a hilarious weeknight dinner...it felt like something someone in the 1950's would have served at a dinner party. But, the whole dish was actually pretty simple to make, and it came out really well — the cheap cut of beef ended up being really tender thanks to a low and slow braise. 

The pictures are kind of all over the place in terms of quality — my flash works TOO well, and without it, everything is grainy and golden. Bear with me as I learn to work out these lighting kinks!

First, I butterflied the 1lb steak, then pounded it until it was about 1/2 inch thick. The beef was seasoned on both sides with salt and pepper.

In a medium sized bowl, I mixed together 1/2 cup tapenade, 1/4 c chopped sun-dried tomatoes, 1/4 chopped fresh basil, and four cloves of garlic, minced. I spread this mixture on the meat, leaving about a 1/2 inch border.

I rolled the beef up into a tight log, and secured it using a length of kitchen twine.

Then, I heated up some olive oil in a large pan. Once the oil was hot, I browned the beef on all sides (about 2 minutes per side), adding 1/2 of a chopped yellow onion to the pan while the last side of the beef roulade was browning. When the beef was done browning, I added about 1 cup of chicken stock to the pan (I would have used beef, but chicken was what I had on hand, and it still tasted great) and scraped up the brown bits from the bottom. I also added a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce to the braising liquid.

Turning the heat to very low, I covered the pan and let the beef roulade cook for two hours at a gentle simmer, occasionally turning the roulade and basting it. When the meat was tender, I removed it from the pan, then turned up the heat and cooked the pan juices and onion until they were thickened.

After the meat rested for 10 minutes, I cut it into 1/2 inch thick slices and served it covered in the pan gravy, with some asparagus and snow peas on the side.

Bon appetit!