(Recipe according to Eckard Witzigmann)
For 4 people: 1 nice cauliflower, salt, butter for the dish; 250 g cooked potatoes, 250 peas, 250 g cooked ham, 100 g freshly grated cheese (Gruyère). - For the sauce: 40 g butter, 1 onion, 40 g flour, 1/4 l meat broth, 1/4 l cream, salt, ground pepper, 1 tsp anise seeds, 2 egg yolks.
Boil washed cauliflower in salted water for about 15 minutes, never letting it become soft. Now, cut into individual florets, spread in a buttered dish. Place the peeled, thinly sliced potatoes and the peas (defrost the frozen ones beforehand, blanch the fresh ones for about 2 minutes) in the dish. Sprinkle the diced ham on top.
For the sauce, melt the butter. When it foams up, add the finely diced onion and sweat it a little. Dust the flour over it and sweat it as well. Deglaze with the stock, stir until smooth and boil down briefly. Add the cream - except for 2 tablespoons - and cook for another 7-8 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add the aniseed. Mix the egg yolk with the remaining cream and thicken the sauce with it away from the fire. Pour the sauce evenly over all the ingredients in the dish, sprinkle with the cheese and bake at 220° for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with green salad.
Crème du Barry
For 4 people: 1 head of cauliflower, 1 l stock, 1 tbsp butter, 250 g potatoes, 4 tbsp cream, parsley, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, mace (mace), freshly grated nutmeg,
Separate the cauliflower into florets, set aside some particularly nice ones, peel and dice the potatoes. Melt the butter in a saucepan, briefly steam the cauliflower florets in it, pour in the stock, add a squeeze of lemon juice, mace and the potato cubes. Cover and cook until soft. Meanwhile, cook the cauliflower florets set aside in salted water until just tender. Puree the soup with a hand blender, add the cream and season to taste with the spices and lemon juice. Serve with the chopped parsley and cauliflower florets.
Not ordinary at all, rather festive: Cauliflower
Wolfram Siebeck, foodie of the nation, took a beating years ago for calling cauliflower a "ordinary stinker". That was back when fine dining was being discovered in this country and home cooking traditions were being ostracized wholesale with German thoroughness. Siebeck's own efforts to refine the cauliflower, as the head cabbage is called in Austria, by means of saffron, they didn't help much; at the latest since his cauliflower insult, Siebeck has been considered arrogant.
I got to know cauliflower as a festive vegetable, with which there was always white sauce (béchamel). It never seemed ordinary to me, and certainly not stinky, which was not only due to the fact that my mother always cooked with love and not with sauces from a bag. Even Magister Elsholtz thought that cauliflower was "harder than Wersich", and that it surpassed any kind of cabbage in tenderness. Originally from Cyprus, as records of Arab botanists show, and liked by the Romans, cauliflower arrived in the 16th century from Italy to France and from there to us.
Beate and Michael Förster run the Eichwaldhof. It has been a Demeter farm since 1948, which means that the farm is regarded as a living organism that is also subject to immaterial influences. For example, the lunar calendar must be observed when sowing and harvesting. Farmers use preparations they make themselves from natural substances, which "enhance the plants' sensitivity to cosmic rhythms and promote the interaction between soil and plants under the influence of the stars".
This is also how cauliflower grows, which is planted in March and harvested from the end of May. As fertilizer, only manure and compost are considered, chemical pesticides are taboo. The Eichwald farmers rely on the beneficial effects of crop rotation and intact biotopes to combat aphids and cabbage flies, which are also fond of the tender florets. However, Demeter cauliflowers should also look nice and white and must not "burn" under the sun's rays; the outer leaves are therefore folded over. The heads are then smaller than those found in supermarkets, but you can taste that they have not been fertilised, says Beate Förster. Organically grown cauliflower also comes from Italy.
Or, like Crème Dubarry, from France. That's the name of a smooth soup, named after Jeanne du Barry, Louis XV's last mistress, made with cauliflower and potatoes, garnished with cauliflower florets and finished with cream. I always enjoy eating these, as well as Eckard Witzigmann's cauliflower casserole with peas, ham and potatoes, topped with an exceptionally spiced sauce. All ingredients can be bought in organic quality in the pretty shop of the Eichwaldhof. And the kids, meanwhile, will be fondling "Minipig", the petting pig.
Eichwaldhof (DEMETER)
Beate and Michael Förster
Brandschneise 3
64295 Darmstadt-Griesheim
Phone: 06155-2309
Fax: 06155-3940
Internet: www.eichwaldhof.de
Opening hours: Hofladen: Mon, Tue 4.30pm-6pm, Wed 2.30pm-6pm , Fri 9am-12pm and 2.30pm-6pm, Sat 7am-12pm
from Waldemar Thomas