For 6 people: 1 kg fillet (from the middle piece), 300 g mushrooms, 100 g foie gras, 3 shallots, 2 packets frozen puff pastry, 3 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp tomato paste, 1/4 l veal stock, 1 egg yolk, thyme, 1 bay leaf, salt, pepper.
Chop the cleaned mushrooms very finely with a large knife (or puree in a blender). Squeeze the mushroom mixture vigorously in a clean kitchen towel. Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan and fry the rather dry mushroom mass in it, stirring constantly, more than steaming. It is possible that more butter is needed. Stir the tomato paste into the puree, add salt and pepper and leave to cool. Fry the clean skinned piece of meat well all round in 1 tbsp butter so that no juices run out. Salt, pepper and let it cool down. Then brush the fillet with the foie gras, you can also leave it out. Deglaze the pan with 1 small glass of Madeira, add a pinch of thyme and the bay leaf, fill up with 1/4 l of stock (veal jus is even better) and boil down thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper and put the sauce aside. You can enrich it with chopped truffles.
Meanwhile, the puff pastry was rolled out to about 5 mm thickness (follow the instructions on the package!); a pastry sheet of about 40 x 40 cm is needed. Spread the centre of this with the mushroom puree, place the fillet on top and brush all round with farce.
Now wrap it in the pastry so that its edges meet under the meat. From the leftover pastry, carve decorations for the puff pastry packet, depending on your inclination and skill. It is brushed with egg yolk.
And placed in an ovenproof dish rinsed with cold water. Cook it on the lowest rack at 210° for about 30-35 minutes; the dough should be baked until golden. Then let it rest for 15 minutes in the oven, which has been turned off and opened a crack, before cutting the meat! Serve with the sauce. Side dishes: the pastry crust and spinach.
At the Highland Cattle in Finsterthal
If you can't find your way in Usingen, it's best to turn to children. And ask not for cattle, but for the place where camels and llamas graze. The information is given as if shot from a pistol and with shining eyes. Then you are standing in front of a veterinary practice where Tilman Richter is helping a sick rabbit. His wife, Isabel Saraber, is responsible for the camels and llamas in the large paddock behind the house. The two sons, who proudly ride ponies, are of course also responsible. The cattle, on the other hand, are on a pasture ten kilometres away with the romantic name Finsterthal, situated high above the Weiltal.
There Isabel's father once bought a weekend house. Horses were soon acquired, followed by two cattle, Milly and Molly. But the children were by no means relieved of the work involved, it was rather a matter of making hay, and how to muck out a stable, with fork and wheelbarrow, Isabel, who grew up in Frankfurt, has not forgotten, she still does it today.
Because care needs the Highland herd already, the boss is twice a day with them. On the other hand, she doesn't think much of pampering the robust cattle with their characteristic, protruding horns. After all, she says, cattle are steppe animals that need sunshine and fresh air, and the hardy highlanders can take good care of themselves. The vet also does not need to intervene when the calves are born.
When they no longer drink from their mothers, they slowly become ready for slaughter and their meat is available in 10-kilo packages. In DEMETER-association controlled quality, customers get the bones for free.
No wonder there are no sales problems, but a waiting list. The sale of meat does not serve to earn a living anyway, nor are the aged mother cows - the oldest is thirteen years old - sold or even slaughtered. They are regarded as "earned employees" and spend their old days with the herd. The bull McDonald also lives there, whose powerful but also elegant figure is praised by the boss, who says he is simply good-looking. In general, she is fascinated by many things, but she does not have to own them, the market leader is no different. The lamas and the Bactrian camels, two in number each, however, have taken her fancy. Perhaps more animals will be added, preferably members of endangered domestic breeds.
When asked if he still eats meat, the market leader's answer is easy: yes, as always, that means rarely, little, and then from the best. Filet Wellington, for example, from organic pasture-raised beef. This festive dish, wrapped in puff pastry and enriched with all sorts of noble ingredients, is the pride of every housewife and amateur chef.
Highland beef
.
Finsterthal (DEMETER)
Isabel Saraber and Dr. Tilman Richter
Stockheimer Weg 2b
61250 Usingen
Tel: 06081-68051
Internet:<link http: www.lama-llamera.de _blank> www.lama-llamera.de
from Waldemar Thomas