The Art Lodge serves us a two-course menu

A regional two-course menu from Katrin, host of the Kind of lodge

Art meets cuisine, foodies meet a family atmosphere: In the cozy parlor, which the Berlin artist Wolfgang Flad has turned into a total work of art, we offer our guests the Kind of lodge A seasonal three-course menu four evenings a week. We cook fresh with delicious, preferably regional foods, which is why the dishes do not follow a fixed recipe, but rather arise more or less spontaneously. We also make forays through the forest and the garden to conjure up new menus over and over again.

Today we're sharing two of our favorite recipes with you, which together make a delicious two-course menu for two people: House-pickled salmon trout with fried polenta, flowers and greens from the garden as the main course, followed by organic hay milk with a mint topping and garden berries and caramelized spruce needles for dessert. Ideal for everyone who wants to serve something special in their own four walls and have a little more time for preparation and cooking.

Ingredients for the Art Lodge's two-course menu for 2 people:

For the trout with polenta, flowers and greens from the garden

2 fresh salmon trout
A little salt, sugar, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, dill and a dash of gin for the marinade
150g polenta
Fresh greens from the garden (e.g. rocket) and edible flowers according to the season to serve

For the hay milk curd with mint topping, berries and caramelized spruce needles

250g curd
Fresh mint
Some powdered sugar
Fresh berries
May tops

Preparation:

Recipe for homemade salmon trout, fried polenta, blossoms and greens from the garden:

1. We buy the salmon trout freshly filleted from Andreas Hofer in the neighboring Feld am See. So if you have the opportunity, be sure to buy the salmon trout as fresh as possible.

2. Rub about two fillets each with a marinade of salt, a little sugar, ground coriander seeds, fennel seeds, dill and a dash of gin and marinate in the refrigerator for two to three days, ideally vacuum-packed.

3. Cook the polenta according to the instructions on the packet, put it in a semicircular (or square) dish and let it set. Instead of water, we always use a light vegetable broth, which we boil from the vegetable remains, a little sea salt from piran and a little garlic.

4. Before serving, cut the set polenta into slices and fry them briefly in olive oil. Portion the pickled salmon trout fillets and serve with the polenta slice, fresh rocket from the garden and edible flowers. Depending on the season, the type of lettuce and flowers can of course vary 😉

Recipe for organic hay milk curd, mint topping and garden berries, caramelized spruce needles:

1. When the conifers shoot down in the spring (in the mountains from May to June), you can collect the spruce shoots, also known as "Maywipferln". They are light green and taste, directly picked, wonderfully “woody” and a little “lemony”. We process them into all sorts of ingredients, including caramelizing them by soaking them in sugar syrup for a week, then removing them and letting them dry in the oven for a few hours. Filled in a sterile jar, they last a whole summer.

2. For the mint topping, we collect a lot of mint from the garden and puree it in the blender with powdered sugar until it becomes a creamy, firm mass, similar to pesto.

3. At "Kaslabn", a cooperative of organic mountain farmers in the Nock Mountains, we buy the delicious hay milk curd cheese. To serve, place the curd cheese on a plate, add the mint topping and, if necessary, a berry or blossom from the garden / balcony and sprinkle with plenty of caramelized spruce needles - the taste experience is inevitable.

Insider tip: Homemade dandelion dressing as a salad topping

We spice up the salad for the main course with a few spritzes of our homemade “dandelion dressing”. For the dressing, in the spring, before the sheep come to the summer pasture, we collect basket-wise dandelion flowers, ideally in the morning. The flowers are boiled in water in a large saucepan for a few hours and soak overnight. The next day we take out the flowers and boil the brew with syrup sugar to make dandelion syrup, which, when filled in sterile bottles, lasts a good year. For the "dandelion dressing" we use olive oil that we buy from a small winemaker near Piran on the coast of Slovenia, the syrup, sweet mustard, a mild vinegar, spices according to taste and a dash of spring water straight from the mountain complete the dandelion dressing.

Enjoy yourself and see you soon in the Kind of lodge

- Catherine