Spinach and cheese roulade

"One day my log will have something to say about this. My log saw something that night." Log Lady, Twin Peaks

I was looking for cooking inspiration in my cookbooks, not so much in Twin Peaks, and found an interesting roulade idea. This recipe is from Yotam Ottolenghi's vegetarian cookbook Plenty More: Taleggio and spinach roulade (p. 290-291). I changed some things in my recipe, and have written down my version below, but you can find the original Ottolenghi recipe also here. I really think that you should try this recipe, and just maybe the log will have something to say to you.

I made some minor adjustments to the dough by using slightly different type of ingredients, but didn't change anything else about it. It was very easy to work on and made a nice smooth ball after the kneading. For the filling I made the semi-dried tomatoes myself, as I love that sort of tomatoes. They are just so fragrant when made in the own oven. The most major change was using havarti and mozzarella instead of pecorino and taleggio, as those were just easier to come by. I think they worked well too.

I initially thought that my roulade was a bit dry, but my partner assured me it wasn't. Of course I left out the crème fraiche, so that would have made it more moist anyway. The roulade was quite tasty in the end, and it held very well together in the oven. I'm tempted to make a similar roulade with different kind of filling. Don't you think that the cut pieces look a little bit like hedgehogs?

Spinach and cheese roulade

Ingredients

Dough

160 ml milk

2 tsp dry yeast

350 g wheat flour

1 tsp sugar

50 ml vegetable oil

1 egg

1 egg yolk

Filling

150 g spinach

20 g basil

100 g havarti cheese

250 g mozzarella

200 g semi-dried tomatoes

1 egg

2 tsp poppy seeds

Method

If you are making the semi-dried tomatoes, better start with them, as they can be in the oven for a few hours. Cut the tomatoes in halves, sprinkle with a little salt and possibly oregano, and bake at about 50 C for a few hours until they start drying slightly. The temperature can be increased at times, if necessary.

Mix all dough ingredients together apart from the milk. Warm the milk up slightly and mix it into the other ingredients and knead for a good while. I probably kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes. Once the dough is a smooth ball, it's good. Let it rise in a bowl for about 45 minutes. Then roll it out thinly on a baking tray that has been lined with baking paper. Let rise for another 30 minutes under a tea towel.

Put the filling onto the dough and shape a large log from it. Let rest once again 30 minutes under a tea towel.

Pre-heat the oven to 200 C. Brush the roulade with a beaten egg, and sprinkle the poppy seeds on top. Bake for 10 minutes, and then reduce the temperature to 160 C and bake for another 25 minutes.

Let it cool down a bit before slicing.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog