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Nettles, regional produce, & great producers
Sage restaurant was run by Thomas Moore and his wife Crystal
from a small (intimate is a better word) space in the lovely
old (by Canberra standards, 1920s) Gorman House Arts Centre, in Canberra. Thomas gives a
lot of his time to training at the local
TAFE and has just received a
Minister’s Award
for Excellence in Training Australian
Apprentices. They sold the restaurant to one of their young
chefs Kyle Prowse, late in 2007 and now they manage the
Grazing Restaurant at Gundaroo
Thomas, can you tell us about what started you using
nettles, and about how you sourced them?
"I got the idea to use nettles from my parents (ex-herb
farmers) - Mum especially, who wanted me to source some for
a quilting project she’s working on. She uses the nettles to
dye the material a deep natural green.
I grew up on a farm
which had an abundance of nettles, and have always been
curious about eating them, as my parents often joked to us
as kids about how nutritious those “weeds” were, and
threatened to cook them up for us.
They were quite surprised when fifteen years later I
told them that I had actually put nettles on my menu!
I found that the grassy flavour of the nettles really brings
out the flavour of the lamb, and that the addition of crème
fraiche, fresh cream or mascarpone cheese to the risotto
seems to add to the richness of the dish and gives the
risotto a sophisticated mouth feel.
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