Garden variety
As our top kitchen talents turn their hands to tilling soil, they share which crops they’ve lined up for the year.
In restaurants today, green is the new black, and kitchen gardens bring greater braggingrights than kitchen kit. Here, some of our top gardener-chefs share their thoughts on good things to plant at home to spice up your menus in the year to come.
ALLA WOLFTASKER Lake House, Daylesford Planted in late winter, broad beans, the trusty and hardy earliest harbingers of spring, are a delight for gardeners and cooks both. Just when you’re getting a little over root vegetables and brassicas, up pop these lovely tall stalks bearing the prettiest white and black flowers – a beautiful garnish and completely edible. My favourite way to cook them is a quick sauté with finely chopped garlic before tossing them with freshly cooked pasta. Plenty of grated parmesan and chopped fresh herbs on top, a glass of chilled white wine and it really will feel like early spring.
MATT MORAN
Aria, Sydney
If you’re after something different, try your hand at growing cucamelons. This fruit looks like a tiny watermelon, but tastes more like a cucumber with a citrus-like tang. Enjoy them straight up, in a salad for a burst of flavour and some crunch, or pickle them and put them in a Martini.
ANNIE SMITHERS
Du Fermier, Trentham
After the last of the frost, we always plant corn. We’ve tried different varieties, but the best by far is the heirloom Golden Bantam. It grows to about two metres and each plant produces two foot-long cobs. Each year we save two cobs and hang them to dry in a cool dark place for the next season’s seed. This year we used corn as stakes for our climbing beans. We wait until the corn gets to a foot tall and plant a single bean next to each stalk.
BEN SHEWRY
Attica, Melbourne
I really like the idea of people growing murnong. Also known as yam daisy, murnong was an important staple of the Australian Aboriginal people but almost disappeared with the introduction of grazing animals. I’m no expert, but this past year I planted my first seedlings in August and they’ve taken off. I’m going to leave them alone until late autumn before attempting to harvest the tasty tubers. It’s a perennial, so I’m hoping the plants will provide tubers season after season. They’re delicious lightly roasted or gently simmered to tenderness. The leaves are also excellent to eat and have a slight bitterness, which I like to cut with a splash of sweet vinegar.
RODNEY DUNN
The Agrarian Kitchen, Lachlan
The one thing I recommend everyone plant is lovage. It’s really easy to grow and, being perennial, you only need to plant it once. I call it celery on steroids; it brings a super-umami hit to just about anything.
I use it in sauces for pasta and meat, and it’s amazing in soups, especially vegetables and chicken. It’s a soft leaf, so you can simply add it at the end. Try putting the seeds through minced beef as a burger seasoning, too.
PALISA ANDERSON
Chat Thai, Sydney
I have a fascination with heirloom South East Asian vegetables and herbs. Last year we started growing my favourite variety of eggplant, the Thai long green variety, which has no bitterness. Its favourite growing companion and accompaniment in a dish is basil. We grow holy basil, or grapao. A common street-stall dish is a stir-fried protein (chicken, say) with chilli, garlic and holy basil served on rice and topped with a crisp fried egg – it occupies a similar place in the Thai imagination as the meat pie in Australia.