From the plains to your plate

Rob and I were both born on farms.  Different farms might I add just to clarify a popular misconception - we are not brothers. For me, the farm was a small dairy farm, south of Auckland in the gentle rolling green hills of the Waikato. For Rob his farm was a cattle property in flat, hot far southwestern Queensland. We couldn’t really get any closer to the meat, the veggies or the milk that we consumed each day as little tackers. Things are a bit different these days. Even when you go to one of Melbourne’s great butchers, it's not often that you are told where the product was reared. As far as major supermarkets are concerned, forget about it, food is a unit, an item. Something to be scanned and sold.

A few weeks back Rob, Maria (our head chef) and myself went to local restaurant run by hospitality lifers like ourselves. We were served some braised lamb forequarter which was amazing. It reminded me of something… my childhood. It was a flavour that reminded me of my grandparents, of BBQ’s at beach houses and of our farm. We later found out that this tasty little memory provoker was from a farm owned by a  partner of one of the restaurants co-owners. I had heard some rumblings of lamb being sold direct from a friends farm and now the all the pieces of the puzzle came together. I was thinking Cavallero needs some of this lamb!!

What you're looking at now is Plains Paddock Lamb, Anna Kelly’s lamb, hanging in our coolroom.   

Update on Monday, August 30, 2010 at 3:30PM by Kent

Before you is photo of one of end results, the leg.

If you can give us 48 hours notice we can serve an oven roasted leg, which is suitable for 5-7 people or a slow braised fore-quarter (cooked in white wine for 18 hours) which will feed between 6-8 people. Both are served with twice cooked potatoes. The leg will cost $150 and the shoulder is $170. Just get in quick as these tastie delights aren't on our menu all the time, due to availability. Drop us a line 03 9417 1377

And if you have really lucky timing you might be offered a special of organic free-range lamb cutlets or chops.