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4.78 from 9 votes
Asparagus is wrapped in thinly sliced beef, then cooked in flavoursome sauce. The sauce of the beef rolls is similar to teriyaki sauce so the flavour is guaranteed. Perfect for appetiser or as party food.
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Beef Rolls with Asparagus
Prep Time
5 mins
Cook Time
10 mins
Total Time
15 mins
 
Asparagus is wrapped in thinly sliced beef, then cooked in flavoursome sauce which is similar to teriyaki sauce. Perfect for appetiser or as party food. Instead of asparagus, you could use green beans or shallots. Or to give more colour to it, you could add carrots. Julienned burdock goes well with beef as well.
Recipe Type: Appetizer
Cuisine: Japanese
Serves: 4
Author: Yumiko
Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)
  • 6 thin slices of beef (about 160-200g/6-7oz in total, Wagyu beef if possible, Note 1)
  • 9 asparagus stems , moderate thickness
  • 1 tbsp Cooking Oil
Sauce (Note 2)
Instructions
  1. Remove hard part of the asparagus stem at lower end and cut into half length each (Note 3).
  2. Boil water in a pan, add a pinch of salt and par boil asparagus for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Drain.
  3. Spread a beef slice on a cutting board, place 3 pieces of asparagus at the end closer to you and roll forward. The asparagus should be wrapped in 2 layers of the beef.
  4. Repeat and wrap the rest of the asparagus with beef. This will make 6 uncooked beef rolls.
  5. Heat a frying pan with oil over medium high heat. Add beef rolls and cook, rolling them occasionally to brown beef rolls evenly. When surface of the beef is slightly burnt all over (a couple of minutes), remove excess oil with kitchen paper as the sauce will not coat the beef well if there is too much oil.
  6. Add Sauce ingredients to the pan and coat the beef roll with the sauce.
  7. When the sauce is almost evaporated, turn the heat off and remove the beef rolls onto a cutting board.

  8. Cut each roll into 3 or 4cm (1¼-1½") depending on the length of the roll and your preference. Place the rolls upright on a plate and serve. (Note 4)

Recipe Notes

1. You can buy sliced beef at Asian grocery stores. You might find sliced beef made specifically for sukiyaki or shabu-shabu. I find that beef slices for sukiyaki is easier to handle as shabu-shabu slices are paper thin. But if the slices are paper thin, you could layer more slices to make the beef thicker when rolled.

The slices I used was about 8-10cm wide, 20 cm long each. The width was just right for the half length asparagus. If your slices are smaller, you can overlap pieces to make to a similar size, or to match with the length of asparagus.

If you don’t have access to sliced beef, you can make your own. Buy a block of beef meat (tender meat cuts) and freeze it for a couple of hours until the meat is half frozen. Then slice them with a sharp knife to about 2mm thickness.

If the slice is too thick, pound it and make it thin. If you have a meat slicer, that will be easier, of course.

2. If you prefer sweeter flavour, you could add up to 1 teaspoon of sugar to the sauce.

3. If the asparagus is very thick, cut the stem vertically into half or quarter after cutting the stem into half length. In which case, you would probably need less number of stems.

4. I cut the roll into three pieces. To place them upright, I also trimmed the edge but for home cooking, you needn’t to do that. You can even place them like logs, instead of upright position. Or slice diagonally for a change.