I have always enjoyed a traditional French egg based roulade, especially the spinach one. I know it’s very 60’s & 70’s retro, but it makes a lovely starter or light meal. It looks quite exotic, but is really very easy to prepare.
I love the lovely vibrant green colour and the fact that it is so light, starch and gluten free. It is merely a super light omelet that is rolled to hold a filling.
The filling can range from creamed mushrooms to cream cheese based fillings.
For the cream cheese you may choose any fat level, from fat free, to medium fat or full cream. If you start with one that already has a herb base you are already ahead of the game flavour wise. I have also used half cream cheese and half goat’s milk cheese, delicious!
As the spinach is fairly bland I like adding seafood to the cream cheese.
I this recipe I used cold smoked trout, but you may use salmon, either hot or cold smoked, smoked mackerel or in South Africa, smoked snoek. Where crab meat is available it will be lovely. In the past I have added a can of drained shrimps or tuna.
Then when it comes to additional flavourings to the fish you can also use your discretion by adding to the ingredients that I have suggested. Chopped red or yellow pepper, dill or fennel or a few milliliters of chopped chilli can be superb. Just don’t omit the lemon zest and juice.
If you want to steer 100% vegetarian then add sautéed mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes and even chopped nuts. Once I made a roughly chopped cooked butternut, sautéed chopped onion and hazelnut filling.
As you can see, the sky is the limit here when it comes to variations ….. I wonder why more restaurants don’t bring savoury roulades back?
