Veal Cheeks with Green Spaetzle and Parsley Roots

Fund

1. Tip 1: It tastes best when you prepare the stock yourself. To do this, however, you need a very large pot and the option of simmering the stock for 12-24 hours. If that doesn’t work, you can of course also use a ready-made stock. Here is my recipe for the tastiest stock for all types of dark meat! (It makes a pretty large amount, but it’s great to freeze!)
2. Melt the clarified butter in a large saucepan. Incidentally, cut the oxtail into pieces and sear it together with the young ox bones (or other beef bones) on a high flame (courage to roast substances! Searing can take 20-30 minutes to get a good color).
3. Add the shallots (unpeeled), the carrots, the leek, the celery and the tomato paste after 10 minutes and fry them vigorously as well. If everything is golden brown and enough roasted substances have settled on the bottom, you can extinguish the whole thing with the port or red wine and fill the pot with water. Then you add the spices. From then on, the stock should draw on a low flame and with the lid open until the liquid is reduced by half (this takes a few hours (for me mostly overnight), so it’s best to check it again and again) .
4. Then you can pour off the lukewarm stock through a sieve and pour it into suitable containers. If you’ve seared the bones and tomato paste properly, it should gel in the refrigerator.

Veal cheeks

1. The veal cheeks need to stew for 2-5 hours, so they should be prepared. To do this, the oven is preheated to 170 degrees (for 2h stewing time) or to 140 degrees (for 5h stewing time) with circulating air. Then you parry the meat and cut off unnecessary fat / tendons. It is then seared in clarified butter in a roasting pan or casserole.
2. The peeled carrots and shallots (this time peeled) are cut into large pieces and added to the meat to sear them. You can season the whole thing with a little salt and sugar. Once a beautiful golden brown color has been achieved, the port wine is extinguished and the stock is added until the meat is completely covered with liquid. Before the roasting pan is stewed in the oven, the apple cabbage is added.
3. The roasting pan is now placed in the preheated oven (without the lid) so that the liquid can escape. You can play with the temperatures, it is only important that the liquid is reduced by about 1/3 when you remove the cheeks, so that the sauce can then bind and taste at the end. To do this, take the roaster out of the oven and separate the meat from the sauce. The sauce is sieved into a pan and the meat is returned to the cleaned roaster.
4. Now reduce the sauce again on a high flame and season with apple cabbage / salt and pepper. The consistency should then be thick to slightly sticky without having to add binding agents (if not, you can add cold butter or a sauce binder afterwards). Finally, the finished sauce comes back to the cheeks, which can now be kept warm either in the oven or on a low flame until serving.

spaetzle

1. Put the spinach and parsley with a little water in a tall container and puree as finely as possible with a hand blender. Then put the puree in a mixing bowl and add the flour, eggs, salt, nutmeg and baking powder. With a hand mixer you process the whole thing with the continuous addition of water to a smooth dough, which should pull strings at the end. Then add the spices to taste again as required.
2. To cook the spaetzle, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and let the butter melt in a pan. Then gradually, either with a spaetzle sieve / press / or board, add the dough to the boiling water and repeatedly skim off the finished spaetzle after one minute with the slotted spoon and add to the melted butter. Swirl the spaetzle in the butter and add salt if necessary. You can now keep them warm either in the oven or on a low flame!

Parsley roots

1. Peel the parsley roots and cut into pieces of the same size (e.g. like French fries). Bring salted water to the boil in a medium saucepan and briefly boil the shells of the roots in it (you can also boil other vegetable scraps, so you get your own vegetable stock and the parsley roots do not lose as much flavor when blanching). After a while, remove the peel from the stock and blanch the cut parsley roots in the vegetable stock for 2-3 minutes (a grainy stock is of course also possible). Drain the roots through a sieve and either process immediately or quench and set aside.
2. To caramelize the parsley roots, let the powdered sugar caramelize in a coated pan (without fat and with a little patience). As soon as the sugar is liquid and golden brown, add the butter and parsley roots and toss well so that the caramel dissolves and combines well with the ingredients. Season with sals and serve hot!
3. Arrange everything on a preheated plate with plenty of sauce and the main course is ready!