Cooking makes me happy: Claudia Fenzel presents two recipes
Munich – When Claudia Fenzel cooks, she is in her element. Then she relaxes and can live out her creativity and put it on the plate – not only for her family, but also for her guests in the Lindenkeller inn on her organic farm in Tiefenbach in the Lower Bavarian district of Passau.
Guests ask for recipes
Guests travel from Munich, Nuremberg, Regensburg and Landshut to be spoiled with culinary delights by Claudia Fenzel. Keep asking for their recipes. “I liked the idea of writing down my recipes,” says Fenzel. So far she had only collected these as notes in a folder. Now her favorite recipes have appeared in the cookbook “Claudia kocht vor Glück”.
Who knows Claudia Fenzel?
Claudia Fenzel is no stranger. In 1995 she was Bavarian Milk Queen, in 2010 she took part in the BR show “Landfrauenküche” and for five years she cooked regularly for “Wir in Bayern”. In 2002, the responsible agricultural economist took over the older farm in Tiefenbach.
With her Gasthaus Lindenkeller, which can accommodate 30 to 60 guests, Claudia Fenzel fulfilled a dream more than 20 years ago and developed her own form of gastronomy, where she cooks according to her mood.
The media attention followed that Fenzel received offers from two publishers. But she and her husband Stefan Fenzel, who used to broadcast an advertising agency, had a clear idea of what their cookbook should look like. “Once in our life we make a book, we wanted to take the liberty of producing it the way we imagined it,” says Stefan Fenzel. So the couple took matters into their own hands and founded Weide-Verlag.
A project in which Claudia and Stefan Fenzel not only put two years of work, but also put a lot of heart and soul into it. Learning by doing was announced. “We’re not professionals, we’ve never done it before,” says Stefan Fenzel. They received support from a graphic designer friend and from Stefan Fenzel’s nephew, who photographed the dishes that Claudia Fenzel had previously prepared in her kitchen with him.
Without tools such as paint or hairspray, which are often used in food photography. “We ate everything we photographed,” assures Stefan Fenzel.
Important for the photos: “Food creates emotions for me”
It was important to them that the dishes on the photos looked real and touchable. “Food creates emotions for me, and the pictures should reflect that,” says Stefan Fenzel. His wife added: “If you follow the recipes, the dishes look just like ours.”
And they taste the same. Therefore, the quantities and preparation steps are as detailed as possible. Claudia Fenzel: “I want every recipe to be a success. In addition, I live in the country where everyone knows everyone else, and it would be even more uncomfortable for me if any of the recipes weren’t right.”
The recipes should not only be easy to implement, but also consist of ingredients that everyone knows and that you can get regionally. Her own claim: “I don’t want any of my ingredients to have been on the plane.” Regional products are very important to them.
And so she cooks her way through the year and is currently creating dishes with strawberries, asparagus and rhubarb. “The best way to live sustainably is to see where the food comes from. The easiest way is to get it locally, so you can see how it’s produced.”
Because they come from the production themselves, the Fenzels have a different relationship to food. “If you live with animals that live in herds as much as possible on the pastures a year, you can no longer imagine any other husbandry,” says Stefan Fenzel.
The Fenzels keep almost 200 cattle on their Hafninger pasture with an area of 65 hectares. They switched from dairy farming to keeping suckler cows 13 years ago. The calves are not slaughtered. The meat from the cattle and chickens that they also keep is sold directly from the farm and at two sales outlets in Munich.
Stefan Fenzel says: “We had the idea of doing a different form of farming, where you deal directly with the customers who get good goods at a decent price.”
Claudia Fenzel comes from a family that cooks a lot. At the age of twelve you stand alone at the stove for the first time and prepare roast pork for the whole family. “Mom was proud of how I did it,” she says.
A number of modern, light and Mediterranean-inspired recipes have been added to these classic family dishes over the years. 120 of them made it into the cookbook. She has cooked and perfected every recipe in the book many times.
“Maybe we’ll bake with happiness again”
Claudia and Stefan Fenzel are no longer sure which of the two came up with the title “Claudia cooks with happiness”. The only thing that is certain is that it couldn’t be more accurate. “Cooking makes me happy,” says Claudia Fenzel. “It gives me great pleasure to cook for other people.”
When her guests in the Lindenkeller are beaming because they enjoyed the food and spent a nice evening with her, “then I go to bed happily”.
The second edition of “Claudia Kocht vor Glück” has already been ordered. “We are a farm. We don’t have the goal of becoming a real publisher Mal for happiness.”
Recipe 1: Basil curd mousse with shrimp vinaigrette
Ingredients for two to four people:
cottage cheese
250 g cottage cheese
125g yoghurt
3 sheets of gelatin
90 g herbs (e.g. basil)
1/2 lime (juice and zest)
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon vegetable broth
some pepper
Shrimp Vinaigrette
4 radishes
10 grams of cucumber
1 spring onion
Juice and zest of 1/2 lime
3 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
coarser pepper
4-6 king prawns
Cress to decorate
Preparation:
For the quark mousse, first soak the gelatine in cold water. Then put all the other ingredients of the quark mousse in a blender and mix briefly for 15 seconds at the highest level.
Dissolve the gelatine in a little warm water, add to the quark mousse, mix again briefly and divide into four small glasses or cups that can be dropped and chill.
For the vinaigrette, sear the prawns on all sides in hot oil, season with salt and pepper and leave to cool. Cut the cucumber, radishes and two prawns into small cubes, and cut the spring onions into fine rings.
Make a vinaigrette with the lime zest and juice, oil, salt, pepper and sugar, add the diced vegetables and fish and leave to stand for 15 minutes. Now remove the quark mousse from the molds and turn out onto a plate. Add the prawns, drizzle with vinaigrette and sprinkle with cress.
Recipe 2: Buttermilk Cream
Ingredients for ten small glasses
500g buttermilk
300 grams of cream
5 sheets of gelatin
100 g powdered sugar
60g lemon juice
fruits for decoration
preparation
First, soak the gelatin sheets in cold water. Whip the cream with a hand mixer until stiff. Mix together the buttermilk, lemon juice and powdered sugar with a whisk.
Squeeze out the gelatine well and dissolve in about 3 tablespoons of water on the stove while stirring constantly. Stir the liquid gelatine into the buttermilk mixture while beating vigorously.
Fold in the cream, spread the finished cream over the dessert glasses and refrigerate for two to three hours. Decorate with fruit before serving.
“Claudia kocht vor Glück” (240 pages, 29.80 euros) is available in the online shop and in selected stores. Info below weide-verlag.de
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