blinde vink – slavink

I am not quite sure whether there is an English name for this recipe. When I was young, we often ate it when we visited my grandmother. The literal translation is “blind finch”, so I thought a long time we were eating poultry. I was a little surprised to read in Wikipedia recently that the recipe was originally invented in 1952 by a dutch butcher. So lets call it a Belgian/Dutch speciality.

Ingredients for 4 “blind finches”:

• 400 grams potatoes
• 200 grams minced beef
• 200 grams beef roulades
• 1 egg
• 1 small onion for the minced beef
• bread-crumbs
• 250 grams of mushrooms
• 2 dl cream
• 1 dl white wine
• 1 tablespoon mustard
• 1 onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• thyme
• 2 leaves of laurel
• mixed salad
• 1 onion for the salad
• Salad oil and balsamic
• pepper and salt
• A thin rope

Method:

• Peel the potatoes and cook them.
• slice the small onion into fine pieces, and mix it together with the egg, salt and pepper with the minced beef.
• Add breadcrumbs until the mixture becomes solid.
• Make four pieces of it, and wrap them into the roulades.
• Tie them together with a rope, so they don´t fall apart when baking.
• Melt butter in a pan, and bake them on all sides.
• Preheat an oven at 180°C.
• Let them bake for another 20 minutes in the oven.
• Cut the champignons into large pieces and bake them in the same pan with some butter.
• Slice the big onion and the garlic, and add them to the champignons.
• After a few minutes, add the white wine, laurel, Thymian, pepper and salt and let it cook until the wine is almost completely reduced.
• Add the cream and the mustard and let it simmer on low heat.
• Bake the potatoes in a pan with butter.
• Season the salad with a finely chopped small onion, salad oil, balsamic and pepper.
• Serve everything immediately on a warm plate.