Barossa Valley tuna salad based on classic combo
This dish or versions of it have been menu staples at Hentley Farm since the restaurant opened in 2012.
On a beautiful property in the Barossa at Seppeltsfield, South Australia, Lachlan Colwill has made the Hentley Farm restaurant his own. The chef has persevered, matured, gained confidence and been part of continuing improvements, to the point that this year, for the first time, we included the restaurant in The Australian’s Hot 50 Restaurants.
It’s that good.
And an important part of the Hentley Farm experience is connection with the region. Colwill and his kitchen are the conduits. He did his time in Adelaide but this appears to be the place that allows him to properly express, as chef, his culinary priorities.
Colwill grew up on the outskirts of the Barossa in the small farming town of Freeling.
“I dreamt of being a musician or writer or both but over anything else I just loved the act of eating, and it was the only thing I truly gave my full attention to,” he says. “I would pull sickies from school and convince my younger brother Stuart to do the same so we could put our money together (or mum’s stashed emergency money) and have indulgent feasts.”
The brothers mastered Family Circle’s Best of Kids Cooking circa 1996, he reckons.
“Becoming a chef seemed fitting … and mum is a skilled cook herself and basically encouraged and inspired the dream.”
THE BACKSTORY
This dish of tuna with chicken liver parfait, or versions of it, have been menu staples at Hentley Farm since the restaurant opened in 2012.
“In a way it’s just a tuna salad with what I feel is a fairly classic combo of tuna, egg, iceberg and dressing,” Colwill says. “The difference, I guess, is the addition of chicken liver parfait, which can turn some people off when reading it on a menu, but I feel it adds a umami richness to the whole combination just like the pate does in a Vietnamese pork roll, which is kinda where this idea sparked from.”
THE PRODUCE
This dish ticks many South Aussie produce boxes but Colwill says it also makes a lot of sense from a produce utilisation point of view.
“Making liver parfait or pate seems to be a very Barossan thing to do, and having neighbours like Barossa Birds means we get to cook with extremely fresh livers, which is vital to get that clean, non-metallic parfait flavour.”
Curing yolks came from surfeit eggs each day from the poultry on Hentley Farm or the property next door.
“We were continuously finding we could use all the whites but often had excess yolks. This simple 50/50 sugar and salt cure on the egg yolks solved this issue and meant we always had these yolks on hand as a pantry item.”
The tuna is farmed by the Moriarty family in Port Lincoln. The Mori-brand belly mid-season (June/July) is excellent, according to the chef, whose secret pleasure is the fish lightly cured in treacle and salt, served with warm rice.
THE METHOD
The dish contains some good techniques, says Colwill, but nothing that isn’t achievable at home, “and the individual components in this recipe are great to add to your personal repertoire”.
Curing eggs is something everybody should try: equal parts caster sugar and table salt, gently burying the yolks in the mixture and covering with cling wrap before refrigerating for two weeks.
“Wash the cure mixture off and shave away.
“To get the parfait flavour right, you want to really focus on a tasty wine reduction: saute about four shallots and a few cloves of garlic until lightly caramelised, splash in a generous amount of Port wine, and add bay leaf and thyme, then let it reduce to intensify.”
You’re looking for “that slightly jammy sweet onion and wine flavour and texture”, Colwill says.
“We just blitz the livers raw in a blender then add the jammy onion stuff and blitz some more until smooth, then add eggs, butter — slowly — similar to how you would with the oil in a mayonnaise, then season with salt, and steam for about eight minutes, then chill.”
Sunflower seed brown butter is simple. Crush some sunflower seeds into foaming butter, continue to cook until the seeds and butter both start to brown, and just as you can really smell those punchy browning aromas, hit it with a little lemon juice to stop the cooking process and remove the pan from the heat. Sear some tuna in a bit of this butter.
“We cut the iceberg lettuce into a fancy little dome to cover the whole dish,” says the chef, “but, honestly, at home just chop the thing up and cover it in lots of egg and brown butter and you’re done.”
THE TWIST
“The combination of liver parfait and seared tuna raises the odd concerned eyebrow,” concedes Colwill, “but we feel it works. We also match this dish with red wine, which often freaks people out more.
“The egg yolk and brown butter really add to the overall umami flavours, so red wine (a light GSM, for example) can surprisingly work, which is pretty handy for us considering the restaurant is located smack-bang in red grape-growing country.”
THE PRICE
High quality tuna isn’t cheap. Fish such as mackerel or salmon could substitute, says the chef. With roughly 100gm per portion of fish, the whole dish should cost about $6-7 per person to make.
At Hentley Farm, the dish is part of a tasting menu: $115 or $190, depending on how hungry you are and how much time you have.
THE FULL RECIPE
Lachlan Colwill’s chicken liver parfait
Ingredients
500g chicken livers
500g unsalted butter
500g whole eggs
500ml port wine
4 shallots
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
3 healthy sized sticks of thyme
Method
Roughly slice/chop the shallots and garlic and saute with a small amount of oil until lightly caramelised. Add the bay and thyme and saute for a further minute or so. Add the port wine and cook the mixture on a medium heat until the wine reduces and the mixture becomes jammy, or until the wine has reduce to around 1/4 of its original volume. Remove from the heat and season with salt then let cool at room temperature.
Melt the butter over a low heat then remove and leave to sit at room temperature.
Pat the livers dry to remove any excess moisture then place in a food processor with the now cooled wine reduction (bay and thyme can be removed) buzz this mixture until smooth. With the processor still running at one egg at a time until all eggs are fully incorporated. Then slowly add the melted butter in a thin stream until fully incorporated.
Season this mixture with salt and white pepper and place in a lidded container or bowl in the fridge to rest (the colour and flavour really develop over night but this step can be skipped or time shortened if you want your parfait sooner)
Once rested pass the mixture through a fine sieve or drum sieve to remove any liver sinews or left over thyme stalks. Taste test a small amount of the now strained mixture and season with more salt if needed.
Weight the mixture into 300g batches and place in small lidded or cling wrapped containers or dishes, something similar to a what you would cook a creme brulee in (take away containers also work well but only if you have a steam oven). Place the containers/dishes in an oven tray with about an inch of hot water surrounding them. If you have a steam function oven set it to full steam and cook for roughly 8 minutes, if the parfait hasn’t seemed to set place back in the oven for a further 4 minutes or until it starts to set around the sides but still has a slight wobble in the centre, similar again to cooking a creme brulee. If you don’t have a steam oven, add about another inch of water to the oven tray and bake the parfait at roughly 120 C for roughly 16-20 minutes looking for that same set/wobble look. Also works well in a Chinese bamboo steamer set up but will take longer than both oven methods. Once cooked remove lids and cool containers in the fridge until fully chilled, over night chilling night is best.
A thin layer of slightly over cooked mixture will be present on the top of each container, if your presenting the parfait to guest maybe best to scrap this layer away but if you don’t care so much about presentation just leave it on as it’s often quite flavourful.