Fresh food, sensational flavours … and goat milking: Appliances Online visits the Agrarian Kitchen

December 11th, 2012

Appliance Talk Humour Kitchen Ovens & Cooking

Appliances Online recently underwent a journey to the wilds of Tasmania to sample the delights of the renowned Agrarian Kitchen …

… and the culinary expertise of masterchef (and Best Home Chef mentor) Mark Best.

The trip necessarily involved experiencing the best of organically grown produce, choice cuts of meats from sourced from hand-reared animals, and some remarkable wines.

Hopes were high as I set off on the trip, accompanied by my colleague Kevin Bradford, with an itinerary that promised a suitably cosmic and enriching experience.

Interest had been further piqued by the advice of an inebriated gent we got trapped with in the queue for our plane at Sydney Airport … who informed us of the location of Hobart’s hottest nightspots (located between the “Police Station and the Centrelink”, he said). How could we not feel inspired?

As it turns out, our trip met all expectations.

What is the Agrarian Kitchen?

For the uninitiated, the Agrarian Kitchen is located approximately 40km north-west of Hobart, near the small town of Lachlan in Tasmania’s Derwent Valley.

Set within a rural idyll even a cynic would classify as “drop-dead gorgeous”, the Agrarian Kitchen is a sustainable farm-based cooking school centered around a renovated 19th century schoolhouse. Embracing the purest of organic principles, its ambition is to open the mind and the palette to the experience of the finest of nature’s produce. Uncontaminated, fresh and free from any of pesticides.

Agrar•i•an (adj): relating to land

A freshness that you can taste.  And – in case you’re worried – nary a sight of kaftan tops, cotton pants, dreadies or any of the other signifiers associated with these sort of things.

The brain-child of Rodney Dunn, the Agrarian Garden grows and uses an extensive vegetable garden, orchard, berry patch and herb garden … there’s also a couple of British Alpine goats, a lazy group of Wessex saddleback pigs, Barnevelder chickens and some geese.

All on about five acres of shimmering green farmland.

Tasmanian adventure

Formely a Sydney-sider, Rodney (that’s him, appropriately attired in gumboats on the right) came to Tasmania because he saw it as a perfect fit for what he wanted to do.

“Tasmania has this underlying culture of food. Most people have access to the most amazing produce, fishing – getting crayfish – and then there’s good quality meat – beautiful lamb and beef.

It decided for me, I knew this would be an amazing place for what I wanted to do.”

That he has a passion for food is unsurprising really, with a culinary pedigree under his belt that includes a few years as food editor of Gourmet Traveller and chef at Tetsuya’s.

The Philosophy

Dedicated what they call an “artisanal” way of life, the traditional approach comes to the fore at the Agrarian Kitchen: they make their own cheeses and butter, preserve meat, bake bread and more.

Due respect is payed to the seasons, menus depend on the time off best condition for their respective ingredients, and special emphasis is placed on naturally occurring produce. The latter including what would otherwise be commonly referred to as, well, “weeds” (such as wild fennel and nettles). It’s all grist to a rather delicious mill.

Rodney describes the ideology behind it as, “Bringing people back to real food – showing them that food, picked at its origin is always going to taste better.”

We had in mind a Tasmanian version of The Good Life – … well, minus the ‘70s flares, Felicity Kendall, and a pair of middle-class BBC actors as comic-relief-neighbours.

Our Food

That our touring group on the day was going to include the one and only Mark Best – Best Home Chef  and AEG mentor, no less – we had readied our appetites for truly award-winning cuisine.

Mark was to be cooking the fruits (and vegetables) of our labours in the fields, sourcing produce from the herb-garden and milk from the goats.

Details of the trip had come with the caveat we would be “foraging for food”, which conjured up images of scraping misbegotten animals flattened under the tires of a few four-wheel drive churning up the Tasmanian back-roads.

However, despite the abundant road-kill on display throughout on our outward-bound journey, we actually ended up feasting on some Wessex Saddleback pork that had been cultivated on the fields of the Agrarian property. Oh and (for the record) the pig in question had been killed quickly, efficiently and humanely some time prior to our arrival.

We did, however, have hands on experience within the garden, harvesting fruit and vegetables (according to Mark’s requirements).

We even got to milk the goats, Sarah and Gerbie.

Inspiring any amount of dirty jokes, these two stoic animals put up with our furtive and clumsy attempts with nary a complaint. Not even when I pointed a teat in Kevin’s direction and squirted him with milk. No amount of lame double-entendres can wreck that experience.

And although it may sound a bit like hard work – no one was complaining. Hey, this was the Tasmanian countryside, and with light showers rolling through the valley that day, freshening the air and cleansing the greenery for crystalline bursts of sunshine, there were all sorts of poetic vibes being engendered.

The Kitchen

Once the harvesting was complete, we reconvened inside the magnificent kitchen for preparation and cooking.

The kitchen is a gorgeous rustic space, large enough for communal cooking, blessed with abundant light streaming through large windows from the garden. Outfitted with a selection of primo gas and electric appliances, the undoubted highlight is the Alan Scott-designed wood-fired oven.

Once his redoubtable underlings (ie, us) had done the requisite amount of cleaning and shelling, Mark prepared a salad using broad beans, peas, lovage and fat-hen.

This was followed by succulent roast pork (with truly unbelievable crackling), cooked with artichokes fresh from the garden and young garlic. This was accompanied by a serve of pink-eyed potatoes cooked in lard.

That lard was a core ingredient was something of an eye-opener for this humble reporter – and for those sceptical about the “L” word, let me tell you that at its best, it’s actually good for you. Lower in saturated fat than butter, it is one of the best sources of vitamin D and contains no trans-fat (considered generally the worst fat of all). So there.

Dessert meanwhile was a combination of a soft-cheese made from the goat’s milk, rhubarb cooked in Elderflower wine and the local honey, which was then topped with alpine strawberries.

A few glasses of a local wine later and all in attendance were in various states of bliss. It was a contented, if somewhat weary, bunch of travellers who took to the mini-van back to Hobart.

After a brief wander around the town searching for the elusive strip somewhere between the cop shop and dole office – Kev and I found ourselves sharing a romantic meal for two at the local Mexican. One surprisingly delicious Tortilla and a bottle of house wine later, and our gastronomic tour of Southern Tasmania had come to an end.

With thanks to Rodney and Severine from the Agrarian Kitchen, Mark Best, Kate Young at Open Haus and Richelle Barker at Electrolux for a fantastic – and extremely informative – trip.