Nadia's Farm proudly sponsored by My Food Bag, documents the life of former MasterChef NZ winner Nadia Lim and her husband Carlos Bagrie, who three years ago took over Royalburn Station at the base of the Crown Range between Arrowtown and Cardrona.
We've seen the couple take on the mammoth task of changing things up at the 1,200 acre station, including an attempt to grow crops never before attempted at the formerly traditional sheep and barley farm. Diversifying Royalburn includes an organic market garden, producing pasture-raised free-range eggs, honey, lamb, wool and even charcuterie – as well as maintaining some of the traditions the station has been known for for over a century.
"Our tagline is, Pioneers then. Pioneers now," Nadia explained in this week's episode to the Burdon's who farmed Royalburn in the 60's and 70's when they came to visit.
Episode two saw a meeting of old worlds and new, when Carlos and Nadia faced crop growing and harvesting season. Included in their crops were the recent addition of sunflowers, phacelia and peas and a giant new influx of honey, alongside a traditional crop of barley.
After successfully planting one million sunflowers the previous year, the team revealed they were upping production to five million sunflowers - a rare and risky move with a high altitude farm, especially sans sprays.
Susceptible to damage from frosts, pests and weeds, the sunflower crop also drew a different kind of visitor – Instagram influencers. But far from being just for aesthetics, sunflowers act as great soil aerators due to their deep tap roots — as well as becoming Royalburn's own branded extra-virgin sunflower oil.
Even with the threat of a weather bomb and an uncooperative combine harvester, Carlos and Nadia produced another bumper crop of blooms – and viewers will soon be able to purchase the oil themselves from the new online farm shop on My Food Bag's website.
Not everything at Royalburn under Nadia and Carlos' management is a first. On this week's episode we learnt Royalburn Station founder William McKibbon was the first supplier of barley to Speight's founder James Speight. Sticking with tradition, Carlos and Nadia planted barley in three paddocks – and inspired by the farm's history, Carlos revealed plans to produce beer with Queenstown's own Altitude Brewing.
Once again showing old traditions and new innovations come together, the grains were given a moisture check using a moisture metre passed down to Carlos by farmers of previous generations — before the barley was harvested using a modern combine harvester with an onboard computer that crunches the numbers in real time.
A visit (and taste test) from the Altitude Brewing team got the tick of approval, with plans made to produce a beer inspired by "something people might have drunk 150 years ago." Watch this space.
Beer and sunflower oil were not the only liquid golds the pair took on during this ep – we also saw Nadia get hands on with the extraction process while making some Royalburn honey. Thanks to a lack of fungicides or pesticides on the station, the result was a pure thyme-scented honey made in conjunction with Wild Central Otago Honey – which viewers can purchase the final product through the Farm Shop on My Food bag's website.
Of course, probably the riskiest project Nadia has taken on at Royalburn is her high altitude organic market garden, which has faced weeds, weather and pests including every Kiwi farmer's nemesis - the rabbit.
The pair were forced to build an expensive rabbit proof fence, as well as take some matters into their own hands. But as we saw during the rooster cull in last week's episode of Nadia's Farm, nothing goes to waste at Royalburn.
"You take the pest and turn it into a resource. And the best way is through eating them," Carlos revealed.
"Rabbit is such a high quality protein that you can't buy – and furthermore, they're delicious. We'll take it home and none of it will be wasted."
To show just how underrated the meat can be, Nadia whipped up a meal to reward Carlos's harvesting efforts – some bunny nuggets.
Taking the rabbit meat, Nadia cut it into bite sized pieces, where it was crumbed and shallow fried, before becoming nuggets perfect for both big and little hands.
"It ain't KFC, it's KFB," joked Nadia.
Do you fancy cooking up something delicious from Nadia’s Royalburn Farm? This week My Food Bag has Gourmet Royalburn Lamb Rumps with Roasted Garden Vegetables and Feta Whip on the menu. Enjoy a premium restaurant worthy dinner at home. Made with high quality New Zealand lamb rump from Royalburn. Seasoned to perfection and served on top of sweet roasted kumara and baby beets. It's elevated simplicity at its best!
Check out more tasty Nadia inspired recipes at myfoodbag.co.nz/nadias-farm
This article was created for My Food Bag, proud sponsors of Nadia's Farm.
