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Herb Roulade with Spinach and Goat’s Cheese Recipe From Blazing Salads

This Herb Roulade with Spinach and Goat’s Cheese dish will make a nice centre piece for any special dinner you are having this Christmas.

A roulade is a rolled up Swiss roll, but don’t let that put you off. Unlike the Swiss roll, which uses a light sponge that can split and fall apart, a roulade base is more like a frittata. It’s firm and easy to work with, even for a first timer.

Read the method in full before you start. When rolling up the roulade, be focused and just go for it like flipping pancakes. Firmness rather than a delicate touch is what’s needed. The nice thing about this dish is that it can be prepared 4-5 hours in advance of eating so you don’t have to do it as your guests are arriving.

Ingredients:

Roulade Base
– 5 free range eggs
– 300ml milk
– 55g butter, or sunflower spread
– 55g white spelt flour or plain flour
– 15g fresh dill
– 1 dessert spoon flat leaf parsley
– 70g vegetarian parmesan style cheese

Roulade Filling
– 1kg spinach leaves
– 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
– ½ onion, finely chopped
– 1 tablespoon of toasted pine nuts (optional)
– 175g soft goat’s cheese
– 115g ricotta cheese
– Sea salt
– Coarse ground black pepper

The Sauce
– 1kg tomatoes
– 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
– 2 cloves garlic
– 15g fresh basil
– Sea salt
– Coarse ground black pepper

Method:
1. To make the tomato sauce, wash and place the tomatoes whole in an oven proof dish, along with the cloves of garlic. Put in a preheated oven on the top shelf. Roast for 20 minutes. Give the dish a shake half way through roasting to turn the tomatoes. Allow the tomatoes and garlic cloves to cool slightly and remove the skins, they should slip off easily.
2. Place the tomatoes and garlic in a food processor, or use a hand blender, along with the fresh basil and blend. Strain through a sieve. Season sea salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Make the Roulade Base
1. Lower the oven temperature to Gas 6, 200C, 400F.
2. Line a 37cm x 25cm baking tin with greaseproof paper. Lightly oil and flour the paper, shaking off any excess flour.
3. Separate the yolks and egg whites; whisk the yolks lightly and set both aside.
4. Warm the milk. In a pot melt the butter or margarine, add the flour. Stirring constantly, cook for 1-2 minutes over a medium heat. Whisk in the warm milk, and cook for 3 minutes, continuing to stir constantly to avoid lumps.
5. Gradually whisk some of the hot mixture into the egg yolks and then return to the pot to continue cooking the roux until thickened and smooth. Season with sea salt.
6. Whisk in the finely chopped herbs and half of the vegetarian parmesan cheese. Whisk the egg whites until stiff. 7. With a metal spoon stir a third of the egg whites into the roux, gently fold in the rest of the egg whites.
7. Pour the mixture onto the prepared baking tin spreading it into all the corners.
8. Bake in the centre of the oven until risen and golden, about 15 minutes. Place on a cooling tray.

The Filling
1. While the base is in the oven make the filling. Wash and remove the stems from the spinach leaves. Wilt in a covered pot until soft. Drain in a colander. Heat the olive oil in a pan and saute the onion until soft but not browned. Squeeze the excess liquid from the spinach, chop fine and add to the pan. Cook for a few minutes. Season with salt.
2. Place the soft goat’s cheese and ricotta cheese into a bowl and with a little sea salt and a little pepper. Whisk together.
3. Lay a sheet of greaseproof paper onto a flat surface and sprinkle with the remaining vegetarian parmesan cheese. Turn the baked roulade base onto the greaseproof paper and cheese. Gently peel off the greaseproof paper on which the base was baked.
4. Don’t worry if the base ‘falls’ when you take it out of the hot oven – it’s a dense mixture and this is to be expected. Spread the goat’s cheese and ricotta mixture over the base, and cover it with the spinach mixture. If using pine nuts, sprinkle over the spinach mixture.
5. Starting with the short end, roll up the roulade using the greaseproof paper to help. Press firmly as you roll. Place on a lightly oiled baking tin. Cover with foil and bake until the roulade is heated through, about 25 minutes.
6. Warm the tomato sauce. To serve, ladle some tomato sauce onto a plate and place a Slice of roulade on the sauce.

Tips
– The sauce can be made in advance. The roulade can be prepared for baking a few hours ahead of time, wrapped in cling film and refrigerated. When ready to bake, unwrap and bake as above.
– If you don’t have ricotta cheese, whip 125ml of fresh cream until stiff and fold the goat’s cheese into it.

Herb Roulade

RECIPE FROM BLAZING SALADS

Lorraine and Pamela of Blazing SaladsBlazing Salads Food Co. on Drury Street, Dublin 2 was opened in 2000 by Lorraine and Pamela Fitzmaurice and their brother Joe to bring quality take out vegetarian/vegan wholefood to the city centre. The origins of their knowledge of wholefoods comes from an upbringing of macrobiotics.

They are from a family who are passionate about wholefoods. Their parents opened ‘The Golden Dawn’ a macrobiotic wholefoods centre in Dublin in the 1970’s. Following on from that in 1982 Blazing Salads Restaurant was opened . As revolutionary as it was at the time, this kind of cooking has become part and parcel of what it is to eat well today. With over 3 decades of preparing and cooking great food, winning awards for their innovation, publishing 2 very successful cookbooks Lorraine and Pamela are known to be the frontrunners in vegan/wholefoods in Ireland .

Their brother Joe has gone on to open the award winning Riot Rye Bakehouse and Bread School in Cloughjordan Co Tipperary. www.riotrye.ie He is also a founding member of Real Bread Ireland.

Blazing Salads 42 Drury Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. www.blazingsalads.com

Blazing Salads  Blazing Salads
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