Cooking with Georg “Salade Roulade”

Georg is the son of very good friends. He studies law at the university in Graz and has many hobbies. One is cooking, and he is really much more than a gifted hobby cook. If I might advise him I would say: “Go to Paris, ask Alain Ducasse or Alain Passard for an apprenticeship (it seems you must be called “Alain” being a famous cook in France) and become chef. And please: come back and open a restaurant!” Georg is so skilled cutting thinnest slices with big knives and arranges patiently umpteen of small pieces of vegetables on baking sheets and plates. He is a connoisseur of spices and showed me proudly a collection of flavourings, oils and vinegars in “his” kitchen unit, lower than those of the others as he has to reach everything from his wheelchair. As he is very good photographer too, he would make a good food blogger.

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Yesterday we baked cauliflower and champignons with sunflower crust and served with avocado cream and – this was the funniest and most interesting part of the cooking – “Salade Roulade”, only possibly to name in French (for the rhyme 😉 ). I confess I was inspired by Alain Passard who even was filmed when preparing it. Georg who didn´t know the film had so many good ideas to realize my ambitious project.

  • Ingredients

  • carrots
  • courgettes / zucchini
  • onions
  • tomatoes
  • nuts of your choice (cut in small pieces)
  • oregano, thyme
  • salt, pepper
  • olive oil (must be organic and best quality)
  • balsamic vinegar (optional)

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Slice the vegetables as thin as possible. Put each slice on parchment paper (we had two and it served 4 as salad) on a towel, this helps enormously when making the roulade. Oil the papers generously and arrange the courgette- and carrot-slices in rows, one after the other, starting from the left, working to the right. The pieces must overlap, you can later fill empty spaces with thinnest sliced tomatoes and onions. Salt, pepper, spread spices, nuts and pour oil over it.

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Start rolling vegetables and parchment paper from the left, very careful and make sure to keep the roulade tight. Leave it in the towel, roll it once again with the towel, keep it tight and put it into the fridge. Leave it at least half an hour in the fridge. We took it out very early, after only some minutes as the baked vegetables were ready. Thanks to gifted cook Georg everything kept together, as the roulade was still very soft.

Same procedure with the second and third and fourth roulade … Enjoy as a starter or with baked vegetables.

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