Zrazy Beef Roulades

Name: Zrazy Beef Roulades
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Polish
Ingredients: Topside beef; Smoked turkey breast; Gherkins; Prepared mustard; Olive oil; Onion; Beef stock; Plain flour; Black pepper; Salt

Zrazy Beef Roulades, plated as one serving.

309 kcal a serving, against 360 for the traditional version. That is 51 kcal off, or 14%, with 43.4g of protein. Serves 4. 1 hour 30 minutes.

What the traditional version is

Slices of beef steak pounded thin, spread with mustard, topped with strips of streaky bacon and pickle, then rolled and secured with toothpicks. Browned in butter, then braised until tender with onions and stock.

What changed, and what each change costs

Beef sirloin for lean beef topside

Sirloin's tender, but lean topside will get you close if you bash it properly thin. It's less likely to stay meltingly soft, but sirloin's expensive and not exactly a weeknight cut.

What it costs you. A bit chewier round the edges. If you overcook it, it's closer to beef jerky than steak. Treat it gently and you'll get away with it.

Bacon for smoked turkey breast

Bacon is half fat by weight, and it's what makes traditional zrazy taste smoky and stay juicy inside. Smoked turkey is about as lean as it gets and still gives a whiff of smoke, even if it can't melt into the sauce.

What it costs you. You lose the internal basting. There's no little pocket of fat keeping the beef soft, so dryness is your enemy. Sauce helps, but it's not the same as the bacon crutch.

Butter for a minimal amount of oil

Traditional zrazy starts and nearly ends with a generous lump of butter. It's there for browning and that unmistakable flavour. Here, I use a splash of olive oil just to stop things sticking.

What it costs you. You miss the richness and the golden edges you get from butter. The sauce is lighter and doesn't cling the same. If you must have butter, throw a teaspoon in at the end for flavour.

Extra gherkin and onion to bulk out the filling

Lean meat dries out, so making the filling juicier with more pickle and onion fills out the bite. It gives you more chew for fewer calories, and stops the whole thing feeling stingy.

What it costs you. A bit sharper, maybe even a little acidic for some. If you're a pickle purist, it's a bonus. If you want silk and smoke, it's a step away from tradition.

Plain flour for a dusting, not a dredge

Flour's there for a little thickening, but the traditional version really goes for it. I'm sticking with a dusting - enough to help the sauce cling, not enough to gum up your mouth.

What it costs you. The sauce is more like broth than gravy. If you want it thick, add some of the reserved flour slurry at the end.

What goes in it

The ingredients, without the quantities. The weights are what the figures below are computed from, and they are in the book.

Topside beef
Smoked turkey breast
Gherkins
Prepared mustard
Olive oil
Onion
Beef stock
Plain flour
Black pepper
Salt

How it starts

Slice the beef into 8 thin slices, about 75g each.
Lay out the beef slices.
Dust each roulade lightly with flour.

The rest of the method, and every weight, is in Authentic-ish Polish.

The numbers

Per serving	Traditional	Lightened
Calories	360	309
Protein	42.9g	43.4g
Fat	15.9g	9.8g
Saturated fat	7.9g	3g
Carbohydrate	10.1g	10.6g
Protein per 100 kcal	11.9g	14.1g

Every figure is computed from the recipe's own weighed ingredient list against public food composition databases. The appendix in Authentic-ish Polish prints the exact database row used for each ingredient, so any number here can be checked. How every number is computed sets out the method.

Allergens. gluten, mustard.

The method is in the book

You can't kid yourself: the real zrazy is softer and silkier because the bacon bastes the beef from the inside. The turkey is the second-best substitute, but it doesn't give fat or that deep savour. What you do get is properly beefy, with a good hit of smoke and enough sharpness from the gherkin to keep it interesting. The sauce is thinner but tastes beefy and savoury, and as long as you don't boil the life out of the beef, you'll get a decent result. This is Tuesday zrazy, not wedding zrazy. Serve it with buckwheat or spuds, and don't let anyone Polish see you making it.

The quantities and the method for this dish are in Authentic-ish Polish, along with 53 more. Buy the paperback