Beef Pinwheels with Mash Potatoes and Maple Carrots
By David Douglas, Contributor
A delicious and complex looking dish, this meal is certainly dressed to impress any guest you serve it to!
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Ingredients:
kitchen twine
2 beef flank steaks (thin)
1 red bell pepper (cut into thin “sheets”)
a handful of spinach leaves
a few slices of your favourite cheese
Sides:
2 cups carrots (cubed)
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tbs chives (chopped)
2 large red potatoes (cubed)
1/4 cup cream
1 tbs butter or margarine
salt and pepper to taste
All the hard work in this recipe resides in the prep. Start by sterilizing a large space on your countertop—this is going to get messy. Take two pieces of kitchen twine (for the two beef flanks) at 18 to 20 inches (45 cm to 50 cm) long and tape the ends down parallel to your counter about one inch (2.5 cm) apart. Lay your first flank steak on the counter width-wise on the string, leaving four or five inches sticking out on the left—as we will be rolling them from the right. Lay the second flank just overlapping the end of the first. Don’t worry if your flanks lay out longer than your string. Season your flanks to your liking.
Simple salt and pepper will do the trick, but feel free to use your favourite steak spice or smear on a thin layer of BBQ or Teriyaki sauce. In thin layers along the length of the flanks, lay down your cheese, spinach, and red pepper sheets. From the right side of your flanks, slowly and carefully begin rolling the flanks up over the layers on top of itself as tight as possible without all the ingredients squeezing out of the sides. Once rolled into a log, remove the tape holding the strings and tie the meat bundle together. Using a sharp knife, cut the excess off the ends of the log—at least a 1/2 inch from the string. If all went well, you should have two one-inch thick spirals of meat, cheese, and veggies.
In a pair of
pots, boil the potato and carrot cubes separately. Once the potatoes are soft
and ready to mash, drain both pots of water and begin to heat up an oiled
skillet on medium heat. Now, I usually multitask here to get everything done
around the same time. If you do not think you can complete the potatoes and
carrots while frying the pinwheels, finish the sides before moving on.
Carefully place the pinwheels in the hot pan and return the drained carrots to
the stove at a simmer. While the beef sizzles, add the maple syrup to the
carrots and the cream and butter to the potatoes. Stir the carrots in the maple
sauce occasionally and begin mashing the potatoes. Once the meat has browned up
to the strings and the bottoms have a good sear on them, flip the pinwheels.
Remove the carrots from the heat and stir in the chopped chives (if available, try
adding some smoked paprika to elevate the dish) and finish any mashing you have
left with the potatoes. Once the pinwheels have a nice sear on both sides and
the meat is cooked to your desired temperature, serve and eat. Make sure to not
eat the string.
