Recipe 21 ➺ Rodney Dunn
Roasted Broccoli with Hemp Seed Cream
Rodney Dunn has worked with food in almost every capacity that a person can, counting researcher, food editor and chef amongst the well-tuned strings in his bow. His love for growing produce, raising pigs, milking goats and keeping honey bees prevailed, and in 2007 he and his wife Séverine made the move to Tasmania. Their first venture: The Agrarian Kitchen Cooking School. Gumboots on, his pupils harvested sweet sun ripened tomatoes and delicately roll out sheets of pasta, learning time-honoured techniques.
It’s with the same paddock-to-plate attitude that they opened The Agrarian Kitchen Eatery, turning Australia’s oldest mental asylum into one of Australia’s finest restaurants. The old exercise yard is now a one-acre kitchen garden home to an orchard, citrus grove and fields of leafy greens. Freshly picked produce makes its short journey to the kitchen to be plated alongside house-made cheese and charcuterie, and then served to diners who have travelled from near and far.
Ingredients & Method
INGREDIENTS
600g broccoli, cut into large florets
2 cups vegetable oil
2 brown onions, finely shaved on a mandolin
6 cloves of garlic
200g unsalted butter
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Lemon pieces to serve
Hemp Seed Cream
1 cup hemp seeds
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Lemon juice, to taste
To make the hemp seed cream, spread the seeds evenly onto a baking tray and roast at 180°C until deep golden, about 10-15 minutes.
Set aside 1 tbsp of toasted seeds. Place the remaining into a blender with a little water and purée until smooth, adding more water if necessary to form a thick sauce-like consistency. Then, with the motor running, add the vegetable oil in a thin stream. Season to taste with salt and lemon juice.
Pour enough vegetable oil to reach 2cm high on the sides of a small saucepan. Heat oil to 180°C, then add the onion and fry until golden. Place on paper towel and set aside until required.
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Add broccoli and sauté until it begins to brown on the outside. Place into the oven and cook until just tender, about 2 minutes. Remove broccoli from the pan and set aside.
Add butter and garlic to the pan and cook over medium high heat until the butter caramelises. Add fish sauce, then adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
Spread a layer of hemp seed cream over the base of a serving dish, spoon over broccoli, then garlic butter and scatter over crisp onion and reserved toasted hemp seeds. Drizzle with a little lemon juice and serve.