the treadmill diaries

There are many names for a piece of meat that gets stuffed with goodies and then is rolled up and tied off before cooking.  But, let’s not get stuck on a name, right?

Whether you call it a Braciola like we do in our Italian household or whatever, the bottom line is that it’s a different way of cooking up your protein and it makes for a nice change of pace. 

Normally, this type of dish is cooked indoors – either in a sauce, in a saucepan or in the oven.  But since it’s summer, I throw everything that I absolutely can on the grill.  Sometimes (in fact most) times it works and sometimes it fails.  Luckily for me, this time it worked and worked well.

For my meat, I decided to go with a lean 1+ pound flank steak since I had several in the freezer.  Next time, I’ll probably choose a more tender cut even though the dish came out great as-is. 

The stuffing includes:

• 2 slices polish cooked ham
• 3 oz fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced thinly
• 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley, minced
• 2 small cloves of garlic, sliced
• garlic salt to taste

The assembly is super simple.  All you do is either pound your protein until it’s about 1/4 inch thick or you butterfly a thicker piece in half.  Then, evenly layer your filling in the middle, roll it up, and tie it together with baker’s twine.  Like this:

While doing that, preheat your grill to about 400-450 degrees.  Place the Braciola / Stuffed Meat / or [enter your preferred name here] on the grill and season to taste with garlic salt or salt and pepper. 

Cook it to your preferred meat temperature – mine is medium (and in this case it took about 25-30 minutes, turning every 5 minutes). 

You then remove it from the heat and allow it to rest for 5 minutes.  Finally, you slice and serve it. 

When you bite into it, you can expect to taste the salt of the ham, to enjoy the gooey, melted cheese, to get a nice hint of parsley and garlic in each morsel.  I love steak but this grilled option is just as yummy. 

I decided to accompany the dish with a fresh cucumber salad, tzatziki sauce and pierogies toasted to perfection on the grill.  It was a nice ending to a hot summer night. 

In addition to having a new recipe to try, you can feel good about this protein having pretty much the same nutritional value as a steak itself because the small amount of ingredients go along way to add flavor without adding too many calories (approx 100 for the entire flank steak). 

Hope you enjoy.   BTW…what do you prefer to call a stuffed protein like this?