In his new book, the Australian chef reveals the pleasure he takes in cultivating heirloom vegetables and cooking with them

I planted my first vegetable garden about 12 years ago when, for the first time in my adult life, I moved into a house with a reasonably sized backyard. I started with a herb garden and experimented with a few vegetables, and was instantly hooked.

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You can plant a small seed – a pea seed, say – into the soil and, within a few days, a green shoot appears from the earth. This green shoot grows into a more substantial plant, climbing a trellis and bursting into flower. These flowers then attract insects for pollination. Small pea pods begin to emerge from the flowers and, as they grow, young peas develop inside the pods.

It’s hard to believe that planting just one seed creates so much life, beauty and sustenance. If the pods are left on the plant and allowed to mature further, the peas will eventually dry, providing new seeds, hundreds of them from a single plant, which can be saved, stored and used to grow new plants for next season.

Of course, I knew this was how it worked, but I hadn’t experienced it first hand before. I just hadn’t realised how wonderful the process was – what a truly, deeply amazing gift nature provides us.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chef Peter Gilmore on cultivating heirloom vegetables: ‘When it all comes together, it is quite magical.’ Photograph: Brett Stevens/Hardie Grant Books

Then I discovered just how many remarkable varieties of vegetables are actually available. I started to devour seed catalogues and my humble garden bed grew to take over the whole of the backyard – including my sons’ soccer pitch, which they were not impressed with!

As a chef, I also began to question why I couldn’t buy some of the varieties I was growing for the restaurant. I wanted to start using purple and white carrots, not just orange ones, in my cooking. I wanted to use some of the amazing varieties of radishes that I was growing – the ones that were the colour of ripe watermelon inside – as well as the beautiful flowers of the peas I was growing.

Back then I couldn’t find these in the Australian marketplace, so I decided to approach the farmers directly. I met with a couple of local market farmers who grew close to Sydney and asked them: “Would you grow multi-coloured carrots and pea flowers for me?” but was met with: “Carrots are orange, mate,” and: “No, I’m not going to grow a field of peas for you and go out each morning and pick flowers. If I grow peas, I’ll plant a whole field, wait until the peas are ready, go out and pick the whole field and send them to market just the once.”

Eventually I found some likeminded, passionate, small-scale growers who were willing to work with me. They were prepared to grow more unusual, often heirloom, varieties for the restaurant and I was willing to pay a premium for them. It gave me a much wider palette of beautiful ingredients to work from and the deal gave them a new market and a better livelihood. It was the beginning of a new revolution in produce here in Australia, a direct relationship between farmer and restaurant with no middleman.

Of course this type of thing had been happening in Europe for decades but it wasn’t really happening in Australia back then. Most city restaurants simply placed an order with a fruit and vegetable distributor who just bought what was available at the markets. My small-scale farmers gradually became bigger and were able to start supplying other Sydney restaurants directly as well.

Fast forward a decade or so and a lot of the produce that I wasn’t able to buy back then is now much more readily available in the general marketplace. I feel very proud that I have played a small part in the growth of this diversity.

During this time my home garden continued to grow. I moved house seven years ago with the express purpose of finding a bigger backyard to grow more myself, which I did. I now call my home garden the “test garden”, and each season I grow as many new vegetable varieties (or, in fact, often old varieties) as I can find to see what’s useful, flavourful and interesting.

I now have a great network of small-scale farmers who will grow my new discoveries for the restaurants. I love working closely with them; we have to plan what they will grow for me each season three to four months ahead, which means I also need to plan my menus. It can be a challenge and I need to commit to a certain amount of produce that needs to be succession-planted by the farmers to provide stability of supply over a season.

There are no guarantees when it comes to nature. Heat, cold, low germination rates, pests, rainfall and many other factors all play their part and I have to be prepared to change my menu if things do not go to plan. But when it all comes together, it is quite magical.

White asparagus

Family: Asparagaceae

Species: Asparagus officinalis

Cultivar: Precoce D’Argenteuil

Often referred to as a “noble” or “royal” plant, asparagus is considered by many to be the king of vegetables. It is grown for its tender edible shoots, which are usually green when exposed to sunlight (though there are also some purple-skinned varieties) or white when deprived of light through a process called “blanching”, whereby soil is mounded over the growing beds as soon as the shoots emerge. Both growing methods produce a delicious vegetable but it is the white asparagus that is most highly prized for its tenderness and delicate flavour.

Asparagus officinalis is thought to have originated in the Caucasian and Siberian regions of eastern Europe, where it is also believed to have been domesticated. The ancient Greeks and Romans took the practice of growing asparagus from these eastern areas along with the old Iranian word sparega (meaning shoot, rod or spray) becoming aspáragos and asparagus in Greek and Latin respectively.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘White asparagus is most highly prized for its tenderness and delicate flavour.’ Photograph: Brett Stevens/Hardie Grant Books

But although the Romans spread the culture of growing asparagus throughout western Europe, the decline of the Roman empire also saw the decline of European asparagus cultivation, and it wasn’t until the Renaissance that asparagus was rediscovered and became popular again.

The rhizome (crown) is the perennial part of the asparagus plant and is composed of clusters of buds. In spring these buds sprout tender shoots that grow up to 25cm in length. It is these spears that are harvested as a vegetable, though if the spears continue to grow they will form fern-like branches which will eventually flower, fruit and seed (the small red berries that contain the seeds should not be eaten as they are poisonous).

Asparagus grows best in coarse, sandy, loamy soils and requires good amounts of organic matter, though it can also grow in richer soils if they are well drained. Asparagus can either be grown from seed or from one-year-old crowns. It is best not to harvest the spears for the first two years, as the ferns are needed to generate energy to establish strong crowns. Once established, crowns can last and be productive for up to 15 years.

There are hundreds of different asparagus cultivars available, with selective breeding responsible for the largest, fattest spears. Precoce D’Argenteuil is a widely available cultivar developed in France in 1830 specifically for the production of white asparagus. It has a delicate flavour and produces large, tender spears with tips that are lightly coloured with a pink to purple hue.

White asparagus risotto

serves 8

White asparagus is such a luxurious vegetable. I often just boil the spears and enjoy them with a traditional hollandaise or melted butter, though they are also delicious shaved raw in a salad, or made into a risotto like this.

The very best white asparagus available in Australia is grown in Tasmania by a man called Richard Weston, who is, I believe, the only person in the country to grow the true European white asparagus varieties.

In this recipe I have enhanced the asparagus flavour by using the trimmings to produce a dehydrated powder, while the asparagus itself is cut into both julienne and larger pieces to provide a change of texture within the dish.

24 large Precoce D’Argenteuil white asparagus spears (or other white asparagus spears), woody ends removed and discarded

2 litres (68 fl oz/8 cups) chicken or vegetable stock

100g (3½ oz) unsalted butter

2 shallots, finely diced

½ garlic clove, finely diced

300g (10½ oz) arborio rice

100g (3½ oz) parmesan, finely grated

Sea salt

2 tbsp toasted white sesame seeds

50ml (1¾ fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

Slice the heads off the asparagus spears and set aside. Peel the remaining stalks with a vegetable peeler, then transfer 10 of the peeled stalks to a wire rack and dehydrate in a dehydrator or a very low oven preheated to 50C for 12 hours, or until the asparagus can snap and is completely dry. Place in a spice grinder and grind to a powder. Weigh out 20g and set aside in an airtight container until needed.

Slice half of the remaining asparagus stalks into 2mm thick pieces on the diagonal and cut the rest into julienne. Set two saucepans on the stovetop, filling one with the stock and the other with salted water. Bring both to the boil.

Melt 50g of the unsalted butter in another saucepan over a medium–high heat, add the shallots and garlic and gently sauté until translucent.

Add the rice and stir to coat well, then start adding the stock a ladleful at a time, stirring every minute or so and adding the next ladleful only once the rice has absorbed the liquid, for approximately 15 minutes, or until the rice is al dente – at this point you should have just a little stock left.

Add the sliced asparagus and stir for another minute, then stir in the remaining butter and 80g of the parmesan. Season to taste with salt and add a little more stock if the risotto looks as though it needs it, then turn off the heat and leave to sit for two minutes.

While the risotto is sitting, add the asparagus heads to the saucepan of boiling salted water and blanch for one minute. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain on a clean tea towel (dish towel). Add the julienned asparagus stalks to the pan and blanch for 30 seconds. Drain.

Combine the asparagus powder with the sesame seeds and remaining parmesan.

Divide the risotto among serving plates and scatter over the blanched asparagus heads and julienned stalks. Drizzle over the extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle over a generous amount of the asparagus powder and sesame seed mixture. Serve.

• This is an edited extract from From the Earth by Peter Gilmore ($80, Hardie Grant Books)