Rodney Dunn
Cooking school proprietor
Lush gardens surrounding The Agrarian Kitchen cooking school in Tasmania's fertile Lachlan Valley produce most of the ingredients used in its classes. Rodney Dunn, a former chef and magazine food editor, established the school six years ago in a converted 19th-century schoolhouse. Its tranquil outlook is a world away from Tetsuya's restaurant kitchen, where he sweated early in his career. He'd grown up on a farm in Griffith, NSW, and was keen to reconnect with the land when he moved south. The schoolhouse's original open fire is still lit when Tassie turns chilly, its temperatures further stoked by a wood oven on the opposite wall. He shares recipes and stories from the school in The Agrarian Kitchen cookbook.
The staples
My pantry: I always keep a good stock of whole grains because I have a little benchtop flour mill which lets me grind small quantities as I need them. The whole grains are not as perishable as the flour so it's good to grind them fresh. I like to use pulses through the year, from salads in summer to throwing them in braises and soups in winter. Hillfarm in northern Tasmania make a fantastic cold-pressed canola oil for general cooking when I don't want to use olive oil or lard from our pigs.
My fridge: There are always homemade jams and you can't beat anything made with berries. Kasoundi's a big favourite too; just a dollop with some roast chicken or on a ham-and-cheese toastie. Jalna yoghurt, always full fat, like all my dairy, for quick dressings or dessert with fruit. Ashgrove butter tastes fresh and it's local.
I'm cooking
Because our kitchen is also the school kitchen we tend to have it all set up and we don't want to mess it up so we do a lot of quick pastas for dinner.
Last dinner at home
We had Rustichella spaghetti with homemade passata, some vegies from the garden – zucchini, eggplant – and some of our own cured pork chopped and fried with onion.
Secret vice
Frosty Fruit ice blocks when it's a really hot day.
I'm drinking
I drink a lot of herbal tea made with our herbs – fresh in the growing season and dried through winter. I drink a few lattes in the morning and move on to the teas later in the day. We make our own elderflower fizz soft drink which carbonates itself from its natural yeasts. We really only drink Tassie wines, often from small producers like Stefano Lubiana and Dirk Meure.
Saturday night tipple
Whatever's open.
My toolkit
My flour mill is indispensable. And I love big cast-iron pots – they absorb and release heat slowly, so it's a gentle way to cook. I always use Mac Japanese knives and we have them for all the students as well.
Favourite
In a fire I'd be torn between saving some hard-to-get cookbooks and my collection of copper cookware.
Inspiration
I get a lot of inspiration from what we grow and also from other chefs. But mostly I get it from cookbooks.
I wish I had…
Another two centimetres' depth on the benchtops to make it easier to attach the pasta machine.
Food discovery
Home-preserved tuna. People around here often catch tuna and I've been given quite a bit of it and the difference between this and commercial canned stuff is amazing. Also grinding your own dried corn for polenta is incredible – it actually tastes like corn!
Most memorable meal
I'll always remember the time I spent in Vietnam eating the street food, the freshness and flavours. We went to one place that had a big open pit fire with a bit of reo (reinforcing steel) over it and they were cooking suckling pigs and chickens. I would do that again over a three Michelin-starred restaurant in France any day.
QUOTE
I like experimenting with matching food with drinks other than wine. We do a bit of beer and cider making, fruit wines too, and I'm about to have a go at mead.