The Tale: Christkind,
Bavaria, Germany ~1934
How an angel annually
made a special stop in the New Orleans area for two little girls and their Oma.
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| My very first Christmas Eve. My big sister Julie is the cute, developed one. I look like a potato. (1989) |
Like I said in my last post, Christmas Eve was the most
magical part of my childhood. Growing
up, we always celebrated a traditional German Christmas with Oma on the 24th.
Because, in Bavaria, Christmas Eve is the biggest part of Weinachten.
We would go to Oma’s and have a German meal with potatoes,
red cabbage and beef rouladen. I
literally just drooled on my keyboard.
Most of these foods have a common ingredient: bacon. Tender, delicious bacon …
But, I digress. (See the succulent, Bavarian recipe for beef
filled with bacon below.)
We would fill our bellies and the smell of potatoes and meat
would linger throughout a warm house. My
mom and Oma would sip coffee at the kitchen table after dinner, while my dad,
sister (Julie) and I would watch a special Christmas episode of a sitcom on TV. Seriously, how many fictional characters have
been visited by three ghosts after midnight?
My mom would suggest that Dad take Julie and me to look for
Santa, and the women would meet us after they finished their coffee. I usually was angry at first. I wanted to know
how the show ended. Would Clarence get
his wings? But my tantrum would subside as we drove by houses lit up with
twinkly lights.
We would eventually stop near Lake Pontchartrain, or on the
Lakefront itself, and Dad would point out different constellations while
holding me or Julie — all the while, looking for Santa’s sleigh. One time, Julie
and I were convinced we saw it.
Oma and Mom would eventually meet us. And we’d spend a few more minutes admiring lights
and looking for Santa before going back to Oma’s for lebkuchen and marzipan.
Walking into the warm house, we would notice a cool
Christmas air snaking through. The back door was open, and gold packages now sat
below the tree. Christkind had arrived.
Christkind, was the angel present at the birth of Jesus, and
she is a little girl who brings presents to good Bavarian children on Christmas
Eve. She made a special stop in the greater New Orleans area every year
for Julie and me.
She doesn’t come down the chimney, but through a door or
window. Oma says she caught Christkind coming into her home in Augsburg as a
little girl.
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| Here is an image I found online of Christkind, the fair-haired little girl angel present at the birth of Jesus. Some claim she was the angel or star that acted as a guide to the manger. |
When Oma was about nine, and called Lottie, she went for a
walk to look at Christmas decorations with her family. She arrived back at home, feeling the winter
air tunnel through the house. She saw
the window, which opened outward, was wide open. And, she was convinced she saw the white
angel floating near the gable of her home.
“To this day, I really don’t know what it was … I assumed it
was Christkind,” Oma said with a little laugh.
But then she paused and said something simple and charming, as if she were
recalling all of our Christmases with Christkind, “Ja ... That’s a nice time for
children.”
The Recipe: Beef
Rouladen by Oma
Rouladen is very rich and will easily serve
6 – 8 people.
My mother patiently sat with Oma and went through the steps
of making her famous rouladen. She sent me the following recipe. Oma is in the process of making it now for
Christmas Eve, so I will not be attempting it at this time. I will post an image for now as a
placeholder, so you can see what rouladen should look like. But it will be
replaced with a picture of Oma’s dish after Christmas.
Ingredients:
 |
An image, found online, of rouladen.
Oma's dish will be posted after Christmas. |
-
2 ½ pounds beef: top round steak, or sirloin,
thinly sliced by butcher to 1/4 inch thickness
-
12 slices of bacon, halved
-
3 large onions, finely chopped
-
Yellow Mustard (Oma actually recommends
American)
-
Salt and Pepper
-
2-3 Tablespoons Flour
-
1 1/4 cup Beef Broth, Mushroom Soup or Water
-
3 Tablespoons Bacon Fat and Butter
-
1 large onion, finely chopped
-
½ cup sour cream, optional
Selecting the beef
for a successful roll-up:
“Start with an
experienced butcher. Have the butcher
show you his top round, not bottom round steak.” - Oma
The pieces must be large enough to wrap up with the filling:
6-8 inches long by 3-4 inches wide.
Have the butcher slice the top round thin, like for
scaloppini or schnitzel, about ¼ inches
thick.
If the butcher shop does not use a tenderizing machine, you
will have to pound the meat to 1/8 inch thickness at home. (A good butcher can
run your cut of round, or sirloin, through the tenderizer without perforating
the meat.)
Filling:
Fry the bacon
until limp not crisp.
Remove bacon from
the drippings.
Add chopped
onions to the frying pan and carefully sauté until golden brown, and watch
closely so they do not burn. (The onions burn easily, and one burned onion
ruins the flavor you are seeking for the rouladen, according to Oma.) *If there
aren’t enough bacon drippings, add butter to finish the sauté.
Process the onion
and bacon together in a finely chopped blend. Don’t over-process!
Filling the Beef:
Lightly flour a
clean food preparation board. Lay out a tenderized piece of beef on the board.
Apply a thin
spread of yellow mustard to the beef.
Sprinkle it with
salt and pepper.
Take 2 tablespoons of filling and gently pour it along one edge, about 1 inch from all of the
borders, so it won’t leak after folding.
Folding & Rolling:
You should have a 4 by 8 rectangle of meat, with a line of
filling one inch from the edges.
Fold it like a burrito, initially.
Fold over the filling on the left, then on the right, and
from the nearest long side. Then start to roll it away from you.
Some recipes call for tying them up with string. Oma likes
to use, plain, un-dyed, round toothpicks to hold her rolls together.
Cooking the Rolls:
In a small bowl, whisk
2-3 tablespoons of flour and 1 ¼ cup broth, and then place in microwave on high
for 30 seconds.
Whisk, and repeat
until very hot and smooth BUT DO NOT let
it come to a boil. (If you need more
gravy, double this broth mixture.)
Dredge each roll
very lightly in flour just before cooking.
Use the sauté pan
with the bacon drippings.
Add butter if
needed to brown the rouladen.
Brown and turn
the rolls on all sides.
Remove the
rolls.
Add the fourth
minced onion and sauté until golden brown.
Add rolls and the
broth mixture to the sauté pan.
Bring to a boil,
then QUICKLY reduce heat and simmer
1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. (Add broth if needed.) Check the rolls to see
if they are tender.
