Autumn Lamb and Barley Salad

An ode to The Barossa Valley and a girl's unfulfilled ambition to travel with a sketch book and paints.

I’m often envious of travellers and their sketch books. Both online and in the wild I see artists with their small sketch books recording a scene from their adventures, maybe with a small pallet of water colours, a range of sketch pencils and charcoals or perhaps even some oils and acrylics. It always looks like the ultimate form of slow travel. Stopping on a journey, finding a comfy and inconspicuous position to observe the world from, unpacking an art kit and with care and consciousness gently making strokes and lines to ultimately form an image. I even imagine those beautiful creations being found in the artist’s possessions by future generations held in the hands of descendants while they daydream of journeys past and their ancestors. Or maybe I’m just the romantic daydreamer.

As a child I loved to draw, imagining myself with whimsy as an artist. I’d pour over my scrap books trying in earnest to replicate with lead pencils the shapes and scenes before me, filling them with colour using my treasured coloured pencils, sometimes even having a try of water colours. Whilst I loved drawing, I don’t know that I showed any great talent. Perhaps that’s why I picked up a camera.

It's with that childlike sense of romance and whimsy I’m often transported when I see artist friends sharing their travel sketches and paintings on Instagram and again imagine myself doing the same. Their insta stories intrigue me with vision of stunning vistas on location in far-flung places, panning to their sketch books and visual diaries where they’ve replicated the panorama before them in their own impression. Sweeps of colour and tone give shadow and light to the view before them capturing the viewers imagination. I’m very envious. I imagine the slow immersive state of their actions allowing them to truly capture the essence of their experience giving their travels a unique richness. Try as I do to replicate this experience with my camera I’m convinced it’s not quite the same, or maybe I’m doing it all wrong. Maybe I should be recreating that slowness. Finding a place to sit, blend into the activity almost making myself invisible, taking the atmosphere in, observing before composing.

This sits with me on every journey, both to new places and those familiar yet away from the everyday. I adore landscape photography and capturing my view of our travels but would also love to be able to sit and draw or paint what’s before me. Driving across drought-stricken plains of western Victoria and southern South Australia towards the Barossa I’m distracted by landscape at every turn. Winds, unencumbered by hills and trees, whip inland off the Southern Ocean bending golden arid crops as far as the eye can see. Hints of the wide Murray River snake in and out of view after crossing the border, it’s big red cliffs casting shadows across its stream. I can visualise what the scenes I’m immersed in could look like in the hands of a capable artist, swathes of gold, hints of sage green below aquamarine skies. I’m envious, envious of their experience of travel, sketch book in hand.

In the last minutes of our drive to the Barossa we descend through hills blanketed in eucalypt, towards the expansive valley spreading out before us. The valley floor takes our breath away, bathed in the golden afternoon light shimmering over a thirsty landscape dotted with autumn tones of vines turning and dropping their leaves.Perfectly straight rows of vines greet us at every turn, star shaped grape leaves fallen on the ground giving way to the gnarly architecture of century old vines all bordered by rocky hills all lay before me as nature’s canvas. A scene so vast and captivating it felt hard to capture, I really wish I could draw.

As the days unfolded and drawing was put back of mind, we explored the area. We gathered ingredients from a farmer’s market, sipped complex rich wines displaying the intricate characteristics of the land and ate food grown and created inspirated by the area in which it’s grown and shared. We visited the farm of an Australian doyenne of cooking gathering a haul of local iconic foods, serving as a reminder of how important the area is to Australian food and how inspirational it is to cooks. Both while away and on our return my hands have worked to recapture some of the flavours we enjoyed whilst away, a habit I find myself often slipping into after a holiday. Drawing on flavours of the season, a strong feature of Barossa food, something occurred to me. The food I find myself leaning on after journeys is somewhat like a creative composition of its own. Maybe I can draw. Maybe I draw, not with pencils, but with food. In reminiscing about our jaunt I add a handful of barley grown in the fields of those wind-swept planes, oatmeal colour, their small oval shape reminiscent of rocky outcrops. Next I slice autumnal toned figs exposing their intricate ruby inners, sweet juices glistening on the surface. Juicy, sweet late season grapes, also halved, reveal soft greens veins reminding me of the important history of viticulture and wine in the region. I add emerald green herbs from turn of the season gardens for more flavour adding shape and tone on the pallet. New season small golden beets roasted and halved remind me of the golden sunshine the valley is bathed in. Lastly succulent juicy lamb sits atop the mound, an historic and iconic product of South Australia’s agricultural history. Drizzling over rivulets of an emulsion of local olive oil and zingy verjuice, a grape growing byproduct, adds a final flavourful flourish wending through the mounds and gullies of the topography of the dish.

Drawing a long bow, I decide that actual drawing doesn’t always lay on paper, rather sometimes it can lay on the plate.

Ingredients:

6 baby golden beetroots

200 gm Barley

4 fresh figs. Dried will work too.

150 gm (roughly ¾ C) grapes halved

1 C loosely packed parsley leaves lightly chopped

75 gm Persian Feta (or to taste)

¼ C walnuts roughly chopped

400 gm lamb tenderloin fillets or backstrap

Dressing:

40 ml verjuice or white wine vinegar (verjuice is a softer flavour so if you prefer a sharper tang in your dressing use the vinegar)

60 ml olive oil

2 tsp Dijon mustard

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Place all dressing ingredients in a sealed jar, shake well and pop in the fridge until later.

Trim and wash beets well, I use a vegetable brush. Place on a square of foil, drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Seal the little package up and place in the oven for 45 minutes or until tender. Allow to cool down well enough to be able to handle them, using the back of a knife gently scrape the skin off. If they’re properly cooked, the skin will come away easily. Set aside.

In a medium pot of boiling salted water cook barley until tender, drain and rinse in hot water. Do this while the beets are cooking.

If you have a griddle pan warm it over a medium high heat, if not a heavy based pan is fine. Season lamb with salt and pepper and cook a few minutes each side until cooked to your liking. Remove to a plate and keep warm while you assemble the salad.

On a platter sprinkle half the barley in a single layer, half the figs, and half the grapes and half parsley. Drizzle over a few good spoonfuls of the dressing and gently fold it all together. Repeat with remaining salad ingredients. You can either lay the lamb on top like I have or slice on an angle in chunks and fold into the salad. This is better if serving as part of a buffet or shared table. Finally sprinkle walnuts across the top, feta (I’ve left the feta on the side in the photo as a certain someone doesn’t like it), any remaining parsley freshly cracked black pepper and drizzle over the remaining dressing. Serve your warm salad straight away.

Notes:

~ You could use Iranian/pearl cous cous, farro or quinoa in place of the barley if you prefer.

~ If you have leftover roast lamb you could use it in place of the lamb fillet or grill some lamb cutlets or cook a pork tenderloin and slice it up.

~Cutting the figs in half and briefly cooking them cut side down in the pan before cooking the lamb is a delicious twist.

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Reading:

~This beautiful piece by Maggie McKellar reflecting on her Mum. A gentle reminder to pursue those long dreamed of drawing skills

~Consider Yourself Kissed, a fab story about womanhood, motherhood and everthing in between.

Listening:

~To this true crime podcast. An as yet unsolved story from a tiny victorian town where my husband and his family lived at the time it all unfolded.

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Wishing you all a lovely weekend ahead however and with home you spend it, and if it’s a tricky time for you I wish you peace in the coming days.

S x