Lady’s Wrist and Mortadella

Lady’s wrist or Lebanese Mortadella is a savoury dish prepared either with beef, lamb or a combination of the two or from chicken… in This recipe we are using beef.

For the Meat:

700 gm of roast beef

½ head of garlic (if you like garlic you can add more)

2 green peppers cleaned and sliced

1 tsp of freshly ground black pepper

1 ½ tsp of sea salt

2 large eggs

1 cup of bread crumbs

Clean the beef from fat and cut into cubes. In a food processor add cubed meat, garlic and green bell pepper and grind finally until the meat gather on one side of the blade, you might do that in several batches… add the egg and bread crumbs , salt and pepper mix well in a bowl to combine.

For the Stuffing:

½ head of garlic sliced

1 cup of roasted pistachio

Or 1 cup of green olives

For the boiling water:

Couple bay leaves

1 tbsp of sea salt

1 tbsp of white vinegar

Divide the meat into three equal parts, on a cutting board laid with a large piece of plastic wrap, take one part of the meat and spread it in the centre of the plastic wrap in a rectangular shape 1 cm thick. Add sliced garlic and pistachios or green olives over the meat and take one side of the wrap and roll the meat over the stuffing using the plastic wrap to roll. Close tightly with the wrap bringing both ends to the centre, and then rewrap it in another plastic and twist the ends and tie each end with a cooking twine...

In a big enough pot, filled with water, add bay leaves, salt and vinegar. Cover the pot to boil. Add the meat wraps to the boiling water, cover and cook for 15 minutes.  Take the meat out to a plate and let it rest and cool.

If you want to use this meat as an appetizer platter you can slice, and serve it over a bed of lettuce, or you can fry it with couple spoons of butter before slicing it to give a nicer brown color. Perfect as a cold meat sandwich.

To serve as a meal… over low heat in the same pan which you fried the rolls, add another spoon of butter and same amount of flour and make a rough, add beef stock and cook on low stirring to thicken the sauce, add ¼ cup of red wine or 2 tsp of red wine vinegar to the stock add the meat and cook for 15 minutes. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Note: My late aunt used to stuff the meat with boiled eggs .

My preference is the garlic and pistachios.