Hobby cook reveals her favorite summer dish - "Great for grilling on hot days"
Created: 08/11/2022 06:19
By: Laura Forster
Almost all of the ingredients in Sonja Dirl's summer dish come from her own garden or from her farm's fields.
"Seasonal and regional cuisine is very important to me," says the district farmer.
© Dieter Michaelek
Looking for new summer recipe ideas?
Restaurateurs and hobby cooks have taken us into their kitchens.
To start with, district farmer Sonja Dirl from Heimstetten conjures up a dish.
Heimstetten
– Sonja Dirl takes a plastic bowl from the kitchen cupboard, puts it under her arm, opens the front door and walks three meters to her own farm shop.
There she stops in front of half a dozen blue boxes and reaches for tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, onions and two corn on the cob.
“I have the luxury of being able to use our home-grown vegetables for many of my daily meals in the summer.
Seasonal and regional cuisine is very important to me,” says the district farmer.
Potatoes, tomatoes, corn and peppers are the basic ingredients.
© Dieter Michaelek
Light summer recipes: Baked zucchini with vegetable and sour cream pan
Her family farms 45 hectares of land themselves and is currently very busy with the potato harvest.
She doesn't have much time to cook, so things often have to be done quickly in the summer.
"I'm a friend of light cuisine.
I've been making this recipe for years and it's always a pleasure to eat,” says Dirl.
She cannot give any quantities – “I do it all, thumbs up, after a certain time you get the feeling,” says the 54-year-old as she spreads the vegetables out on the table in her kitchen.
Cut the vegetables into fine cubes and put them in a pan.
© Dieter Michaelek
The recipe: Baked zucchini with vegetable and sour cream pan
Ingredients: courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, corn, onions, potatoes, sour cream, Emmental cheese, herbs, salt and pepper, broth
•Wash the vegetables and cut into small quarters, except for one zucchini.
Put rapeseed oil in a pan, add vegetables and sauté.
Stir in some broth.
• Cut the remaining zucchini into slices, sprinkle with salt and leave to stand until water drops form on the surface.
Pat them dry with a kitchen towel and fry the zucchini slices in a separate pan.
Turn once and place the Emmental on the zucchini.
Flavor with herbs.
• As soon as the potatoes are cooked, add the sour cream and herbs, salt and pepper and serve.
Dirl puts the knife on the outermost layer of an onion and tears it off with a skilful hand movement.
Then she snips the tuber into small cubes – just like peppers, potatoes and tomatoes.
“I always use plum tomatoes for cooking.
They're less watery.
I've been making this recipe for years and it's always a pleasure to eat.” Then she cuts the zucchini into small pieces.
“This is a vegetable that is easy to grow at home.
However, one plant per family is enough, otherwise you have far too many and it gets out in your ears.”
There are no fixed meal times in summer
Especially in summer, flexibility is very important when it comes to dirls.
Fixed mealtimes can often not be adhered to - and even if Sonja Dirl is not on the field, she often has little time to cook.
“Usually I get a call from my men that they will be done with the work in half an hour.
Then it has to be quick,” says the woman from Heimstetten, using a knife to push the vegetables off the board and into a hot pan.
also read
Putzbrunn reacts to air bookings with noticeable daycare fees
Expansion of the A92 should start in two years
The pan-fried vegetables are seasoned with a homemade broth.
© Dieter Michaelek
It is rare for Dirl to prepare the meal at the rustic wooden kitchen table.
"I often don't have the time to sit down at the table and prepare everything, although that's how we learned it at home economics school back then." After her apprenticeship as an office clerk, the native of Haar met her husband Josef and graduated again during the so-called winter school an apprenticeship where she learned everything about rural home economics.
By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular district Munich newsletter.
Light summer dishes: Being able to take care of yourself - a luxury
Although Dirl does not come from a farming family, she cannot imagine any other life today.
Being able to take care of yourself is a luxury for the district farmer.
She has neatly arranged all her herbs and spices in a kitchen drawer next to the stove – most of them come from her own garden.
"I even make broth myself," says Dirl, and drizzles a spoonful of the green powder over the pan with the vegetables while she frys zucchini slices on the stove next to it.
Sonja Dirl roasts the zucchini slices and seasons them.
© Dieter Michaelek
A special treat for Sonja Dirl's summer dish: sweet corn.
“40 years ago we were the first farm in the county to grow sweet corn.
My husband brought it from Canada.” Customers now come from as far as Holzkirchen to Heimstetten for the sweet vegetables.
"It's a summertime classic that works super easily in the steamer, but can also be snipped into a stir-fry."
At the end, the slices are covered with Emmental cheese.
© Dieter Michaelek
Great for grilling and for hot days
The district farmer uses a bread slicer to slice thin slices of Emmental from a loaf of cheese and place them on the zucchini slices.
Dirl refines the vegetable pan with sweetcorn with a cup of sour cream.
"Not a must, but I like it so much.
Both dishes are great for grilling and are suitable for hot days.”
You can find more current news from the district of Munich at Merkur.de/Landkreis München.
