The Holiday Table

Christmas is here, and it couldn’t be a more magical time of year. To celebrate, we asked photographer Amelia Fullarton and the brilliant duo behind 100 Mile Table to host friends and family at lunch in the garden – it's the latest instalment for Country Road's journal, Live With Us, together with Moda Familia.

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2.  Photographs AMELIA FULLARTON  Words NATASHA INCHLEY

3.  Recipes SARAH SWAN & JEREMY BURN of 100 MILE TABLE

    
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5. Let's Do Lunch: main picture top, a festive lunch on the lawn at Byron View Farm; above right, chef Jeremy Burn prepares the day's dishes. Guests wear Country Road throughout and tabletop styled with Country Road homewares.

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2. here's something so gorgeous and sparkling about Christmas in the Australian summer: the fading afternoon sun as it casts a golden light on family get-togethers, the heightened sense of belonging, the table on the lawn. Togetherness is the binding bliss of it all of course, but wonderful food also plays an important role with colourful, zinging ingredients at its core – sweet ripened fruit, the prettiest salads and the heady waft of fragrant spices that linger in the dizzying heat. To capture the festivities, photographer Amelia Fullarton joined with Sarah Swan and Jeremy Burn of 100 Mile Table, to conjure a modern Christmas menu for friends and family at the heavenly Byron View Farm. Swan and Burn have a knack for dreaming up the most sublime seasonal fare: the pair built its business around the philosophy of sourcing solely within a hundred miles of their base in the Northern Rivers near Byron Bay. “The place is abundant with goodness,” says Swan, a chef for more than 25 years, who spent a good portion of that time working with Neil Perry’s Rockpool Group.

   The focus of 100 Mile Table is simple: “We care about the produce we serve, so we cook simply – there’s no need to overthink great ingredients. Joy at the table, in our minds, is created with gorgeous shared platters of food all placed along the middle of a beautifully set table, and passed from guest to guest. It creates such a wonderfully sociable environment and is truly the loveliest way to eat with family and friends.” 

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4. When conjuring the perfect Christmas menu, Swan recommends updating traditional recipes with typically Australian twists: “The season itself is our inspiration, not just the festivity of Christmas but also the produce available – early season figs, which we were lucky to find, beautiful peaches, the sweetest tomatoes known to man. We wanted the menu to be very visual and low fuss. We glazed a locally-produced free-range ham with our chewy mandarin marmalade and added finely sliced oranges to give it colour and a zesty kick. We also included prawns, peeled and served with an aioli, which had toasted local macadamias stirred through.” According to Swan and Burn: “Christmas eating should be indulgent in your produce selections, simple in the delivery and with a view to keeping the clean up to a minimum.” Read on for 100 Mile Table's gorgeous recipes: 

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9. Ingredients – Serves 16

10. 8 ripe yellow peaches

11. 8 ripe but firm figs

12. 1 cup mixed micro cress and herbs

13. 50ml sherry vinegar

14. Juice of 2 oranges

15. 100ml extra virgin olive oil

16. Sea salt and freshly cracked white pepper

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18. Method:

19. This is a very simple composite salad that will happily handle the addition of finely sliced raw vegetables like fennel and radish. I also love to add prosciutto or burrata for a complete lunch salad. Make the dressing by whisking together the olive oil, sherry vinegar and orange juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside. Wash the peaches and slice the cheeks off, then the sides, Cut each cheek into 3. Place in a large bowl. Tear each fig into about 4 and add to the bowl.  Add the dressing and toss gently. Assemble the peaches and figs into a large bowl or a few smaller ones to fit down your table, then toss the micro cress and herbs in any residual dressing and sprinkle over the top.

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1. Ingredients – Serves 16 

2. (including leftovers for sandwiches the next day)

3. 1 x 4kg half ham 

4. 1 cup marmalade (100 Mile Table Mandarin Marmalade)

5. ½ cup brown sugar

6. ½ cup maple syrup

7. ¼ cup Dijon mustard

8. Whole cloves to decorate

1. Method:

2. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Carefully remove the skin of the ham whilst leaving the layer of fat intact. Using a sharp knife, score the ham diagonally to create a diamond pattern and stud each diamond with a clove. Place the studded ham in a baking tray – cut side down. To prepare the glaze, mix all ingredients in a large bowl – stir well to dissolve the sugar. Spoon the glaze mixture over the ham ensuring good coverage, particularly of the fat. Try not to use all the glaze. Bake the ham for 1 hour until golden brown, removing from the oven frequently to baste with leftover glaze and pan juices. 

3. To store leftover ham:

4. Soak a ham bag or clean large tea towel in a mix of 1 part vinegar:10 parts cold water. Wring it dry and enclose your ham. Refrigerate. Remove the ham bag when it becomes dry, rinse well and repeat the vinegar soaking process. 

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