(after the "Landgasthof zum Weißen Schwanen", Braubach am Mittelrhein)
For 6 people: ¼ kid (approx. 3-4 kg, with bones), 12 potatoes, 3 eggplants, 2 zucchini, 2 bunches of spring onions, 2 red peppers, 2 yellow peppers, 2 green peppers, 1 fennel bulb, 1 stalk of celery, 1 tomato, olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary, herbs de Provençe, 1 bulb of fresh garlic.
Preparation: Preheat oven to 200 C, cut up kid, season with thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper. Quarter garlic cloves and lard meat with them.
Brush baking sheet with olive oil, sprinkle with thyme and rosemary. Place kid on baking sheet and place on top rack of oven. Allow to cook for a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes, turning the kid two or three times in between and basting repeatedly with the cooking juices.
During the cooking process, prepare the vegetables: Wash, clean and dice the vegetables, peel the potatoes, season with salt, pepper and herbs de Provençe. Brush the tray with olive oil and place the vegetables on the tray. Put the vegetables in the oven (bottom rack) three quarters of an hour after the kid. Also baste the vegetables two or three times with the roasting juices. Even better, place the meat on a rack halfway through cooking so that the gravy drips into the vegetables.
At the end of cooking, remove both trays, slice the kid open and serve with the vegetables.
Enraptured by the meat of the kid
The lion's share of meat goats in Germany are Boer goats, which come from South Africa. On their organic farm high above the Lahn Valley, on the southern edge of the Westerwald, Paul and Hiltrud Linscheid keep around 500 of the robust animals. But not only there, because in summer the goats, "the largest herd of meat goats capable of herding in Germany", are active in landscape conservation on the steep slopes of the Middle Rhine. To do this they have to be trained so that they don't jump off over hill and dale, which they could easily do, but follow the shepherd (whose name is shepherd and not "Zieger"). That the Linscheids like goats goes without saying; not only are they intelligent, but "really nice" (instead of bitchy).
The lambs are slaughtered all the same, and that, that is the special thing, not only in spring. While dairy goats give birth to lambs in late winter alone, meat goats lamb all year round. Thus, the Linscheids have five to six month old kids, which weigh about 12-15 kg when cut up and ready for cooking, including the liver, which is not to be sneezed at at all. The meat of the kids is hung for five days and costs, all in all, 9,90 € per kilo. You have to pre-order the kids.
The meat of the kid is the healthiest of all slaughtered animals, is the lowest in cholesterol and contains only two percent intramuscular fat. Moreover, since Linscheid kids are kept organically, i.e. they are only grazed or fed with the farm's own hay and silage in winter and are never given concentrated feed, their meat is particularly delicious. Not to mention goat salami.
Now, many have even greater prejudices against goat meat than against that of lambs. Even according to the Larousse gastronomique, the meat of the kid tastes severe, and the otherwise so excellent Magister Elsholtz even thought it had "all the time a horny taste about it". That may have been true in its time, but it is no longer true today. Just as old mutton is no longer eaten, old billy goats are no longer put into the cooking pot. Whoever has tasted kid once, roasted with young garlic, for example, will be enraptured and will be rid of all prejudices.
The Linscheids then let dairy goats graze. They make good cheese from their milk, goat mozzarella or cream cheese with fresh garlic, for example. There are also real pasture-raised oxen, whose much sought-after meat will only be available again in autumn. From the balconies of the five holiday apartments you can look far over the Lahn valley into the Taunus. Finally, the many petting animals make the Taunusblick farm an attractive destination for families with children.
At the beautifully restored "Landgasthof zum weißen Schwanen" in Braubach on the Rhine 20 km away, Linscheid goat meat is a big hit on the menu as "Westerwald kid with Provençal vegetables and baked potatoes".
BIOLAND-Ferienhof Taunusblick
Paul and Hiltrud Linscheid
(at the southern edge of the village)
56379 Hömberg (near Nassau/Lahn)
Phone 02604-5516, Fax 6559
E-mail:<link> info@ferienhof-taunusblick.de
Homepage: <link http: www.ferienhof-tausblick.de _blank>www.ferienhof-tausblick.de
Open Mon-Fri from 6-7pm, Sat from 11am-1pmt
from Waldemar Thomas