I don't experience it too often that a dessert remains permanently in my memory. Here is such a case, and I therefore asked its creator, Ingo Holland ("Altes Rentamt", Klingenberg am Main; 1 Michelin star), to tell me the exact quantities.
Here's the recipe (for 6 people): 0.75 kg potatoes, floury cooking, 250 g boiled potatoes, salt, 1/8 l boiling hot milk, 400 g fresh goat cheese, 125 g butter, 75 g breadcrumbs, approx. 250 g chilled quince jelly, 6 tsp icing sugar.
Peel raw potatoes, grate finely, squeeze vigorously in a cloth; collect the liquid and let the starch settle. Peel cooked potatoes also, press through a press and add to grated potatoes. Salt, add the settled starch and pour over the hot milk. Work the whole thing into a smooth dough.
Shape the goat cheese into 12 small balls, coat them with the potato dough, and form them into balls with wet hands.
Soak the dumplings in lightly boiling salted water, about 12 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the butter until golden brown and stir in the breadcrumbs.
Spread 2 tbsp jelly on each of 6 plates, place 2 well-drained dumplings on each and pour the breadcrumb butter over them. Sprinkle each with 1 tsp unsifted icing sugar and serve immediately.
Organic cheese made from goat's milk, sheep's milk and cow's milk - always single variety. Allergy sufferers appreciate that.
When Gudrun, a dental technician, and Jörg Diener, an aviation electronics engineer, were expecting their first child 21 years ago, they began to look into questions of healthy nutrition. Soon their own vegetables sprouted, not long after that a little lamb jumped around, and then it wasn't long before they ventured into cheese-making. Later, the family turned their backs on the Rhine-Main area and acquired the Herbertsmühle, a beautifully situated estate near Hünfeld in the Rhön. For the past 16 years, the Dieners have been living off the profits from their cheese dairy and still keep sheep and zebus on their pastures, but they don't milk them - the family simply doesn't have the time. No wonder, with a production range of about 15 types of cheese, with herb variations it is considerably more. Nevertheless, the distances are short, since all the milk comes from the Rhön biosphere reserve and is produced in a controlled organic way.
The Herbertsmühle excels with cheese made from goat's milk as well as from sheep's and cow's milk. Except for the fresh cheeses, the base ingredient is always raw milk. In addition, all cheeses consist of 100% of the respective type of milk; sheep's or goat's milk is never mixed with cow's milk, which is important for allergy sufferers. This varietal purity makes interesting comparisons possible, for example in the case of Camemberts or Farmer's Gouda. Incidentally, cheeses can already be distinguished by their color: those made from sheep's or goat's milk are pure white, while cow's milk cheeses are yellowish in color, because of the natural beta-carotene contained in the milk.
To turn it into cheese, before the milk is heated, the bacterial culture that determines the later variety is first stirred into it. To this is added rennet, which coagulates the milk. At the Herbertsmühle, only natural rennet obtained from calves' stomachs is used, not genetically engineered rennet, as is often the case. Jörg and Gudrun Diener have visited French farms from time to time, but have acquired their knowledge mainly by learning by doing - and have paid a lot of dues. For example, when they tried their hand at red smear cheese, Munster being one of them. In no time at all, the bacteria infected the entire cheese dairy and all the products turned red. It was a real drudgery to get the rooms clean again. Separate, strictly separated rooms would have been needed, but they cost a lot of money.
Cheese cannot be a cheap food, because 100 kilos of milk turn into just 10 kilos of cheese. They need constant care, ripen their time and yet they do not always turn out. Diener makes one of his showpieces from goat's milk: Crottin, matured goat cheese with a more or less firm, natural rind; an inconspicuous but noble cheese that can easily compete with the French original. It can be gratinated very well, for example for an appetizer. On the other hand, cheese has always been used for desserts, such as moist cheesecake. But I'm particularly taken with this dessert: potato and goat cheese dumplings with quince jelly, from a recipe by Ingo Holland (Restaurant Altes Rentamt, Klingenberg am Main).
Farm cheese dairy Jörg and Gudrun Diener
Herbertsmühle
36088 Hünfeld (Rhön)
Phone: 06652 / 6663
Fax: 72739
Email: hm6663@aol.com
Internet: www.herbertsmuehle.de
Opening hours: Friday: Frankfurt, Markt Börsenplatz Saturday: Frankfurt, Bauernmarkt Konstabler Wache.
from Waldemar Thomas