Kitchen Garden: Getting figgy with it
During Autumn, Jodie Newall harvests fruit from eighty fig trees at Wallaroo near Hall. Every weekend, Canberra horticulturist Verity Alexandra drives to Bookham where she and her friend Geoff are establishing a heritage fruit tree orchard on his property near the river. Her rescue brumby Andre and his horsey friends supply fertiliser to the young Blue Provence and St Dominique Violette fig trees.
So when Verity saw a modest sign on the Barton Highway just before Wallaroo Road, she detoured to find an esky filled with purple skinned, red fleshed Brown Turkey figs and bought a 500g bag full for $6.50 which she gobbled on the 80 kilometer trip.
Hundred Acres Produce is a branch of the Newall family business. Paul and Carolyn Newall bought the farm in 2006 and moved there from Weetangera. Fig and olive trees were already planted on the property but they had not been maintained and gone feral. Apart from the 15 horses on the property as part of Team Newall Equestrian, growing, tending and harvesting the produce is a 'team effort' between her parents, brother Hugh and Jodie. With the fig trees, one big net covers three rows and takes three to four hours to get into place using brooms and manual labour. They can pick 150 kilograms in a week and the figs have to be sorted, weighed and delivered.
Every morning, Jodie, a Grand Prix Dressage rider, exercises the six horses 'in work' on the property. Then she delivers trays of figs to Highroad in Dickson, Temporada in Civic and Aubergine in Griffith, The Conservatory at the National Arboretum and The Boat House. The anticipation of the annual crop starts in springtime when you can smell the fig leaves and The Boat House makes fig leaf ice cream. Jodie said it is rewarding to bring produce to the kitchens and see the excitement on the faces of the chefs and for the patrons to see that it is fresh.
When we met, Jodie was delivering a tray of figs and a tray of farm grown cherry tomatoes to Highroad in Dickson before she headed off to her work as a lawyer in Civic. She said the figs for sale at the farm gate were picked fresh every morning and that there are about 12 figs in a 500g bag. This season Wild Brumby Schnapps in Jindabyne has taken 50 kilograms of figs as a trial batch to make fig schnapps.
When the figs finish at the end of April, the family has a small vineyard of shiraz grapes to harvest, and from mid-May they start picking the crop from 600 olive trees on the property. Their 'Hundred Acres Gold' extra virgin olive oil is cold-pressed to retain health benefits. The olives are hand-picked and pressed locally and last year they pressed around three tonnes of olives to create the year-round boutique oil.
Hundred Acres Produce has twice won champion garden produce best fruit entry at Royal Canberra Show and, in 2015, the first showing of olive oil netted a bronze medal at Sydney Royal Fine Food Show.
At Highroad we were greeted by the manager and the chef Luke Carton. For The Canberra Times, Luke had made his special pancakes with salted peanut cream topped with the fresh figs and also the Highroad Bircher, a scrumptious muesli with coconut, pomegranate, strawberries and Jodie's figs. He has generously shared the recipes.
Highroad Bircher
Soak oats overnight in coconut milk and, next morning, zest some lime into the oats, just to freshen it up a bit. Spoon the bircher serving into a bowl. Slice the figs and strawberries and sit them on the bircher, add roast coconut and pistachio nuts, then add pomegranate seeds. Pipe coconut yoghurt around in dots for contrast in presentation and finish with some lemon balm leaves.
Highroad Pancakes
200g plain flour
30g castor sugar
20g malted milk powder
12g baking powder
6g salt
240ml milk
2 eggs
60g butter
Using a small saucepan, melt the butter and set aside. Add all the dry ingredients to a mixing bowl. Add the milk and eggs to a separate bowl and whisk together, then add to the dry ingredients and combine. Finally add the melted butter to the mix and pass through a sieve. Cook on a low heat on a flat grill or in a fry pan to whatever size you like.
Highroad makes a peanut cream and puts cloud of it over the pancakes then they pipe house made chocolate mousse around the plate. They slice bananas, sprinkle with sugar and caramelise them using a blowtorch. Spiced butter cookie dough is cooked, crushed and sprinkled as a crumb on top of the pancakes which are crowned with the sliced figs.