For 4-6 people: 1-1.5 kg of meat, beef, veal or lamb; salt, 1/2 tsp saffron, 1 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 jar olive oil, 1 large onion, 2 tomatoes, 1.5 kg potatoes, 50 g pickled olives, the zest of 1 preserved lemon cut into pieces (see below for recipe). Pita bread.
Tajine is braised in the clay pot of the same name.
Sauté diced meat with salt, saffron and pepper in olive oil. Add onions cut into rings, peeled tomatoes and chopped parsley. Add the cumin and stir. Bring to a simmer. Deglaze with enough water to cook the potatoes, which are peeled and quartered lengthwise. Add the lemon peel and olives towards the end of the cooking time. Serve in the dish and serve with pita bread.
Pickled lemons
2 untreated, ripe lemons, 75 g coarse sea salt, 1/8 l fresh lemon juice, approx. 1/8 l cold pressed olive oil.
Wash lemons, dry, cut into eighths. Mix with salt and juice. Pour into a jar so that the wedges are covered by the liquid. Close jar tightly with a glass lid and let the lemons ripen for 7 days, shaking the jar daily. Then pour on the oil. Preserved lemons will keep in the refrigerator for up to six months.
From herbalist to epicurean gardener
<x>.N</x>When company founder Burghart Koch-Seubert is asked what is new in the nursery, he answers not without pride: "Rosenthymian. This is found nowhere else in the world." It is a chance seedling, with a distinctive, light rose aroma. If you sprinkle a few leaves of it into the glass, sparkling wine takes on a subtle fragrance of roses. The first two hundred pots have been sold, the next two thousand will follow these days, so coveted is the distinctive herb.
Other than that, Koch-Seubert designs herbal events in upscale gastronomy and has a lot to do in Biebrich, because the nursery has grown considerably over the years. Among other things, by an orangery, where you can organize all kinds of parties and celebrations between blooming, fragrant orange and lemon trees, weddings, for example.
Twenty mints, twelve sage, thirty varieties of thyme, about six hundred different herbs from all over the world - that was the state of things eight years ago during the first visit of the market leader. In the meantime, the Otzberg herbs have grown considerably: to 47 mints, 80 sage, 50 varieties of thyme, around 800 different herbs in total. "We are ", the boss explains, "no longer a pure herb nursery, but have now become a plant nursery."
This means that the Otzberg herbs company is in line with the general trend. Because dealing with the fragrant greenery has drawn wide circles over the years, has become downright fashionable, so that even on the most modest beds more than just chives and parsley can be found.
Besides the herbs, customers buy sweet persimmons (whose taste lies between pear and apricot), olive trees (which, if you wrap them up, are hardy in the Rhine-Main area); several varieties of bananas, eight varieties of figs, pomegranates, thirty different kinds of citrus. Then there are several chestnuts and apricots; traditional tomatoes, strawberries and potatoes, in short: the nursery earns additional merits with the preservation of old crop species. Or is it taking climate change into account?
With citrus fruits - the oldest tree in the nursery is eighty years old - the herb gardener's heart beats for oranges, whose peels are good for eating. For tajine, the vegetable-meat stew of Moroccan cuisine, braised in the clay pot of the same name and smelling wonderfully of the fragrances of the Orient, the herbalist uses whole oranges with the peel, "They are a wonderful spice!". Especially Valencia oranges, whose juice and pulp Koch-Seubert appreciates as much as their aromatic rind. Pickled lemon also fits, but pomegranates can also be very serviceable.
In contrast, the fruits of late summer would find their most beautiful complement in the cream-colored blooming licorice tagetes, recommends the herb specialist. Children especially love them.
Otzberg herbs
Burghart Koch-Seubert
Erich-Ollenhauer-Str. 87a
65187 Wiesbaden-Biebrich
Phone: 0611-8120545
Fax: 0611-8460558
Internet: www.otzberg-kraeuter.de
Opening hours: (Mar 15-Oct 15): Mon by appointment; Tues, Wed, Fri 3-6pm, Thurs 3-8pm, Sat 2-5pm. (Groups by appointment)
Sa and Thu: Bauernmarkt Frankfurt, Konstablerwache
from Waldemar Thomas