For approx. 6 people: 25 g dried porcini mushrooms, 1.8 kg beef bow, 3 tbsp olive oil, 50 g butter, 2 carrots, 1 leek, 2 onions, 3 garlic cloves, 3 celery stalks, salt, pepper, 2 bottles Chianti.
Soak the porcini mushrooms in 1/4 l hot water for half an hour. In a roasting pan that can just about hold the meat and chopped vegetables, heat the oil and butter and sear the meat vigorously in it on all sides, seasoning well with salt and pepper. In the meantime, clean the vegetables, chop them and place them around the meat, fry them briefly, also season with salt and pepper. Pour on the red wine, bring to the boil and then regulate the heat so that the liquid is only simmering very gently.
Let the meat simmer gently in it without a lid for 3 hours on the stove, turning after every half hour. The sauce must boil down thickly.
Finally, remove the meat and keep it warm. Reduce the sauce further if necessary and puree in a blender or with a shredding stick. Season to taste and serve with the meat cut into finger-thick slices. Serve with mashed potatoes.
At Miss Bioland in Strinz-Margarethae
If a "Miss Bioland" were ever to be elected, Cornelia Enders would have a good chance of taking one of the top places. She did not come to agriculture out of embarrassment, as a newcomer or as a transfer, but has always seen her professional perspective in the work on the pasture, the field or in the stable. After she had helped her grandfather for years, the path was clear after graduating from high school.
She became an agricultural technician, took over her parents' farm and converted it to organic farming. Today, however, the farm looks different from what was originally planned. The keeping of boarding horses went so well that the cattle herd could be considerably smaller. Instead of the originally planned forty, only twelve Limousin-crossed Fleckvieh cattle graze today. With the mighty Limousin bull and their calves on the 35 hectares of natural grassland. In winter they stay in the barn, but in contrast to earlier practices, it is open and airy, there is only a windbreak for the animals, and that is quite enough for them. They eat hay, stand or lie on straw and have their calves with them, who can drink from their mothers whenever they feel like it. In the spring, the calves go out to pasture with them and, in addition to milk, eat grass.
This is called suckler cow husbandry; it is the most natural form of raising beef cattle. In autumn and winter, however, the weaners are slaughtered and then their meat is available, by advance order, as you would expect. Noble and less noble cuts, bones, minced meat and excellent beef sausages are then offered in a package, and there is no shortage of buyers. Cornelia Enders is particularly proud of the fact that there are also people from the village among them, even farmers from the surrounding area who have seen the cattle grazing on the airy heights and know that they can expect a special quality of meat.
With all this, the beautiful farmer's wife is not alone, but has been in steady hands for ten years. However, not married, because Uwe Enders, also an agricultural technician, bears the same name only by chance. He also manages a 200-hectare farm in the neighbouring village together with his father in the conventional way. This will one day bring together a lot of expertise, which should open up wonderful development opportunities for the farm.
Cornelia and Uwe Enders are fond of preparing a minced meat sauce from the meat of their organic cattle with lots of vegetables and eating pasta with it, pasta Bolognese you could call it. More festive, meanwhile, is braised beef, as boeuf à la mode or even stracotto al Chianti, Tuscan style, with lots of wonderfully thick sauce.
Margarethenhof (Bioland)
Cornelia and Uwe Enders
Pfalzstr. 20
65329 Hohenstein-Strinz-Margarethae (near Idstein/Taunus)
Tel u. Fax: 06128-1674
Sale ex yard by tel. Agreement
from Waldemar Thomas