2022-03-01 GOOD ORGANIC GARDENING

PEA | GARDEN TO TABLE

PEAS & GOAT’S CURD TART

SERVES 6–8 METHOD

Harry’s mum Helen was famous for her pea and 1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 26cm loose-bottomed tart tin.
goat’s cheese tart. This is our gluten-free version 2. For pastry, place ingredients in a bowl, add 2 tablespoons of water
with a modification or two, but it still pays homage
to her creation. Gluten-free tart bases tend to and 1 teaspoon of salt and mix together by hand until a smooth
be difficult to get right, but we found one similar dough forms. Roll out dough, then use it to line tart tin, spreading
to this in a Lee Holmes book and it’s easier than it over the base and up the sides with your hands. Chill for 30
making a traditional base. Much fun and happiness minutes, then fill tart shell with baking paper and baking weights
can be found within the casing of a good tart! and blind-bake for 10 minutes. Cool tart shell to room temperature.

INGREDIENTS 3. To make filling, blanch peas in a large saucepan of boiling salted

• 2⅔ cups (400g) fresh or frozen peas water for about 30 seconds (up to 1 minute if they’re frozen). Drain
• 4 organic eggs and rinse under cold water. Place eggs, cream and mint in a bowl
• 200mL single (pure) cream with a quarter of the peas and half of the goat’s curd. Blend with
• 2 tablespoons mint leaves, plus extra to serve a stick blender, adding ½ teaspoon salt. Scatter all but a handful
• 1¼ cups (150g) soft goat’s curd, crumbled of the remaining peas into the tart base, then pour over egg and
cream mixture. Crumble remaining goat’s curd over the top and
Pastry scatter with the last of the peas.
• 3 cups (300g) almond meal
• 100mL olive oil 4. Carefully transfer tart to oven and bake for 30 minutes or until
• 1 teaspoon thyme leaves
centre is only just set (it will continue to cook out of the oven so
don’t overdo it). Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before teasing
tart from tin. Serve topped with extra mint.

Good Organic Gardening | 101

REVIEWS | BOOKS

COV ER A GOOD DAY TO BAKE YATES GARDEN GUIDE

TO By Benjamina Ebuehi, Hardie Grant, $32 By Angie Thomas & Yates Australia,
Whether she’s indulging a sweet craving or just HarperCollins, $35
COV ER losing herself in the kitchen for an afternoon, After 126 years of publication, this familiar
Benjamina Ebuehi avers she’s “not someone green handbook seems as much a part of the
Leafing who needs an excuse to bake”. The 2016 Great landscape as the Aussie backyard. In fact, we
through books British Bake Off quarter-finalist dreamily have two English brothers, Arthur and Ernest
for gardeners describes the calming ritual — getting out Yates, to thank for this supposedly Australian
the measuring scales, pouring out the flour, institution. They moved from Manchester to New
and cooks whipping the eggs, stirring the batter and, Zealand in 1879 and 1887 respectively and Arthur
finally, slicing up the warm cake — like a Zen later set up in Sydney where he wrote the first
Reviews Chris Stafford master imparting the wisdom of ages. Even Garden Guide, sowing the seeds, as it were, of a
better, she goes on to offer 70 sweet and business that soon became a household name.
savoury baking recipes, from herbs and tea to Over and above its usual encyclopaedic roundup
stone fruit and berries, from vegetables and of 1000 natives and exotics and how and when
spices to (yes!) chocolate. And, best of all, with to grow them, the Guide is packed with advice
this book as your guide you no longer have on every aspect of gardening, indoors and out,
an excuse not to enjoy the therapy and simple all profusely illustrated in colour. It’s almost
mindfulness of the baking ritual — because worth owning just for its potted history of
every day is a good day to bake. garden design in Australia and New Zealand.

FERMENT FROM SCRATCH THRIFTY COOKING THE HOME FARM

By Mark Diacono, Hardie Grant, $24.99 By Country Women’s Association of Victoria, By Nicki Trench, Hardie Grant, $37.99
Slow food is all the rage and there’s probably Murdoch Books, $24.99 Prolific homecrafts writer Nicki Trench has put
none slower than fermentation, which relies The average Australian household not blessed the quilting and crocheting aside and ventured
on the activity of bacteria and mirrors the with omnivorous pigs or chooks sends around outdoors to create her own garden farm — and
chemistry of your own gut. From the familiar 5kg of food waste to landfill every week. suggests that, with a little encouragement, you
— sauerkraut, sourdough, pickles — to the For the home economists of the CWA, this can, too. Of the many “Gardening for Dummies”
perhaps more exotic — miso, kimchi, kombucha just won’t do. Thrifty Cooking mines their titles around, this one is a wide-ranging primer
— fermented foods, says Mark Diacono, are the collective wisdom on how to use up every on everything from the basics of sowing and
result of “a natural process that would happen last scrap in the fridge, whether it’s frittata growing to composting, troubleshooting pests
without you”. He explains how to kick things of roast vegies from last night’s meal or pies and diseases and keeping all kinds of beneficial
along using simple skills that take little time made from leftover stews or curries. Most of animals, from chickens and bees to pigs and
(except a waiting period!) and result in food the book is given over to fail-safe versions of goats. As Trench says, gardening is a more
with deep flavours and multiple health benefits. family favourites and there’s also a chapter on productive use of energy than trudging on a
Once you master kimchi and lime kosho you catering for when a hungry crowd drops in — treadmill and there are many other benefits,
can incorporate them into such dishes as pad this is the CWA, after all. Perhaps handiest of all including the money you’ll save and the friends
thai and crab linguine. With our trees laden are the hints on preserving a glut and what to you’ll make swapping produce over the fence.
with limes and a friend who keeps bees, we’d do when a recipe goes wrong: how to save the Whatever your age or circumstances, no matter
be crazy not to try Mark’s lime marmalade with day without having to start over. It’s all about how large or modest your backyard plot, here’s
ginger, rosemary and honey. frugality, not parsimony. your instruction manual for the good life.

102 | Good Organic Gardening

RED BULL ANT | GARDEN LIFE

ANKLE The red bull ant plainly left an impression on our earliest explorers.
BITER On his 1770 field trip down under with James Cook, Joseph Banks
collected a specimen and noted, “Of insects there were but few sorts,
Common name: Red bull ant and among them only the ants were troublesome to us.”
Scientific name: Myrmecia gulosa Banks couldn’t have been looking very hard. Australia boasts nearly
Words: Chris Stafford 1000 species of ants and the nastiest of them all is the bull ant or bulldog
ant, a solitary hunter with excellent eyesight, massive mandibles that can
deliver a bite to remember and a sting it can use over and over again.

Ironically, despite being armed to the teeth and able to fell prey as large
as frogs and lizards, these little bruisers prefer a liquid diet of honeydew.
Their larvae, however, are carnivorous and often cannibalistic.

And we don’t know who tipped him off, but the philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer once described how, if an Australian bull ant is cut in two,
the head and tail will fight to the death, jaws versus sting. “Let that be
a lesson to you!”

Getty

Good Organic Gardening | 103

PICK OF CROP
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104 | Good Organic Gardening

PICK OF THE CROP

THREE-TIERED STEEL PLANTER

Perfect for a compact kitchen garden or a
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earthlife.com.au more information, see tumbleweed.com.au.

Good Organic Gardening | 105

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