feed me meat
Recipe: Italian BBQ Roulade
There are so many things you can do with a roulade. You can make one from a pork shoulder or belly, or actually from pretty much any meat. You can let your imagination run wild when it comes to the filling, and you also have a whole range of tying techniques to keep it together. As the icing on the cake, you can even decide whether to eat it hot or cold. So. Many. Choices. Where do you even begin? With this recipe from Over Charcuterie, then.
door Steffi Posthumus
Preparation
- Lay the belly flat, with the inner (rib) side facing up.
- Rub with the salt and pepper and roughen the meat up a little by rubbing the salt in firmly, or even working it with a grater if necessary. This will help it stick together better later.
- For extra sticking power, you can sprinkle it with gelatin powder or meat glue.
- Distribute the remaining herbs evenly over the belly.
- Roll up tightly and tie closed with a roulade knot or with netting.
- Leave to cure and develop its color in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours.
- Light the BBQ for low-and-slow cooking (approximately 120°C).
- Cook indirectly, with some smoke (olive or lemon wood would be nice, but beech or fruit wood works too) until the internal temperature reaches 68°C.
- Vacuum-seal and leave to cool overnight.
- Serve in thin slices as charcuterie.
Tips and variations
- If you reduce the salt content to 15 grams per kilo, you’ll have a roulade that can be eaten hot. With the salt content in the recipe above, it will be rather intensely seasoned when served hot.
- You make an Italian porchetta (porketta, not portsjetta) from a pork belly with the skin on and the loin still attached. (And sometimes from a completely boned-out animal, but that’s taking things a bit far for a sandwich). You’ll need to ask your butcher specifically for this. Scoring the skin, rubbing it well with salt and cooking it in an oven or BBQ at 150°C will give you beautifully crispy skin. A gas torch or a brief spell under the hot grill can help too. In our view, this is really more of a hot dish than a form of charcuterie. Still fucking delicious, of course.
- You can also make this with a boned-out pork shoulder.
- Don’t go overboard with the filling; you want to be able to slice the finished product.
- That said, a roll of ground and seasoned forcemeat in the middle is of course very elegant. Or another cut of meat, such as pork tenderloin or saddle of venison. Just make sure you’ve cured that too.
Charcuterie photography: Saskia Lelieveld
Title: Over Charcuterie
Author: Meneer Wateetons
Price: €31.99
Publisher: Carrera Culinair
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