Pork roll with leaf spinach and a light hint of cognac

Recipe steps

We thoroughly clean the pork and cut it into one piece. Then we gently pound it through foil, trying to avoid flattening it too thin, but rather shaping it into an even slab.

We peel the garlic and slice it into thicker pieces. We peel the onion and cut it into larger cubes. We sort the fresh spinach, rinse it, and gently dry it. In a larger pan, we heat a teaspoon of olive oil, add half of the garlic, let it become fragrant, and then add the prepared spinach leaves. We carefully stir the spinach in the pan and sauté it only until it wilts slightly.

Then we remove the pan from the heat. We let the frozen spinach thaw and remove excess water from it, then proceed the same way as with the fresh spinach. We preheat the oven to 180°C.

In the pan, we heat the oil, add the onion, and sauté it until golden. Meanwhile, we season the meat with salt, sprinkle it with coarsely ground pepper and the remaining garlic. We drizzle it with two tablespoons of cognac and place the prepared spinach on top. We lightly salt it, add a few pieces of butter, and pour two tablespoons of cream over it.

We roll up the meat and secure it with pins or string. We salt the outside and sprinkle it with coarsely ground pepper.

We push the sautéed onion to the side of the roasting dish, add the rolled meat, and brown it on all sides. Then we pour boiling broth (or water) into the dish up to one third of the meat's height, cover it with a lid, and place it in the preheated oven. We roast the meat until tender, occasionally turning it and basting, only if necessary.

Depending on the type of meat, this takes about 1.5 hours. During roasting, we scrape off the browned bits from the sides of the roasting dish into the juice, so the sauce has a nice color. When the roll is done, we remove it and keep it warm.

We reduce the juice in fat and then sprinkle it with flour and briefly sauté to eliminate the raw taste of the flour. Then we add cold broth (or water) and thoroughly whisk to prevent lumps from forming. We let it cook for about 20 minutes.

Next, we pour the sauce into a pot, add cream, and gently heat it (the cream should be at room temperature; otherwise, it might curdle in the hot sauce). Finally, we add the remaining cognac, a few pieces of butter, and turn off the sauce.

We gently add a pinch of colored pepper to the sauce to enhance its aroma and flavor. We clean the roll of pins and strings, slice it, and serve it with sauce and bread dumplings.