For cooking
This is how three-star cuisine works: sturgeon mousse with gin-fizz sorbet from Christian Jürgens
This is what it looks like when it is conjured up by three-star chef Christian Jürgens.
© Christian Juergens
Christian Jürgens is one of the best chefs in Germany. He has held three Michelin stars for years. How do his dishes taste? Here’s one to try.
The “Überfahrt” restaurant on the picturesque shore of Lake Tegernsee is a place of pilgrimage for gourmets. For 14 years now, three-star chef Christian Jürgens has set the tone in the kitchen and ensures that every guest gets a taste on their plate that they won’t forget. Now the top chef has opened his recipe booklet for the portrait collection “Three Stars: That’s all you can do” and picked out a dish to try at home. This, he explains, is a tribute to a great chef who has held two Michelin stars for almost three decades: Dieter L. Kaufmann. Kaufmann ran his restaurant “Zur Traube” in Grevenbroich for 52 years, until the end at a high level. It wasn’t until 2014, at the age of 77, that he hung up his chef’s jacket.
Homage to Dieter L. Kaufmann
Sturgeon mousse, cucumber, gin fizz, Imperial Persicus caviar
This dish contains five different elements, the sturgeon stock, the sturgeon espuma, the gin fizz sorbet, the cucumber sauce and the cucumber pearls. Unfortunately, it is not specified how much time you have to plan for it or for how many people the dish is intended. In addition, some kitchen utensils are required that are not part of the basic equipment, such as an ISI bottle and a vacuum sealer. So it’s not for beginners.
sturgeon fund
350 g smoked sturgeon
50g Noilly Prat
125 grams of white wine
600 g white stock
250 grams of cream
250 grams of milk
1 tbsp butter
Fry the sliced sturgeon in butter, carefully season with salt and sauté until glazed. Then deglaze with Noilly Prat and white wine, reduce by ¹/³, fill up with Fond Blanc and reduce again by ¹/³. Then add the cream and milk and bring to the boil once – leave to infuse, mix and pass through a micro sieve.
Sturgeon Espuma
600 g sturgeon stock
4 sheets of gelatin
16 g Proespuma (cold)
lemon juice
Salt
Season the sturgeon stock to taste, stir in the gelatine and then stir cold until it thickens. Then add the Proespuma. Pour into a large ISI bottle and top with 1 capsule. Place the espuma in the freezer for 30 minutes and shake vigorously every 5 minutes. The espuma has to cool down for about 6 hours.
Gin fizz sorbet
45g Hendrick’s Gin
70g Lime Juice
150 grams of water
20 grams of lemon juice
20 grams of lime juice
2 sheets of gelatin
Mix all liquids and basics together and finally stir in the gelatine. Vacuum once to remove the air. Pour into Paco Jet cups and freeze in dry ice. Ice cream must not be too cold when served.
cucumber sauce
5 pieces of cucumber
2 sheets of gelatin
lemon juice
Salt
sugar
Peel, deseed and mix the cucumbers. Pass through a microsieve and add 2 sheets of gelatine to 400 ml. Chill and season with sugar, salt and lemon before serving. (Always keep on ice)
cucumber pearls
1 cucumber
Salt
sugar
lemon juice
Peel the cucumber and cut out pearls. Then marinate with sugar, salt and lemon juice.
The recipe is from the book “Three Stars: You Can’t Get More” by Gunnar Meinhardt and Isolde Heinz, 176 pages, 28 euros. In this, the best chefs in Germany are portrayed. As a treat, each of the chefs reveals one of their recipes from the three-star kitchen.
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