
[Romania] Cooking Angus beef on the Hârtibaciu Valley
I’ve recently written about the Hârtibaciu Valley, about how beautiful and diverse this area is and about the abundance of local products. A few days ago, the chance arose to actually taste some of these local products in dishes mastered by Sibiu’s most talented chefs and I just couldn’t say no.
One Monday afternoon (first time I ever said to myself ‘Thank God is Monday’) here we are on the Hârtibaciu Valley, on an Angus cows farm. And with the chefs from SyndicatGourmet (one of the coolest restaurants in Sibiu) preparing a heavenly menu having the main ingredient some quality and fresh Angus beef.
Forget about the so famous beef steak, this time it was about using other beef cuts and turning them, with a bit of imagination into some very tasty and good looking recipes. From the menu: oxtail soup with beef goulash dumpling, pickled onion and edible flowers; grilled beef rump with baked potatoes puree and wild mushrooms stew; pulled brisket in rhubarb sauce with baked onion and rhubarb chutney and osso bucco slow cooked in stout craft beer with marrow, quince jam and parsnip puree. All ingredients perfectly combined together to give each dish an excellent taste.
The ingredients used by the chefs for these recipes are all local, most of the vegetables being bought fresh from the market that morning. The beef comes from Karpaten Meat, an Angus cow farm in the village of Marpod (about 30 kilometers from Sibiu). They grow their own cows and feed them only with grass on their pastures. This contributes to producing high quality Angus beef cuts, that can also be purchased from Premium Angus online shop.
Sibiu County will be in 2019 the European Region of Gastronomy and these type of events aim to promote the local products and producers and to bring them closer to the end consumer for a complete and very authentic gastronomic experience.