What’s in the Pantry: Cypress Ridge Produce
Four flavour-packed pantry additions from a family-run garlic farm in Ballandean.
The best pantry ingredients are the ones that earn their place. They make everyday cooking easier, add flavour without adding unnecessary work and give you plenty of different ways to use them.
During our recent travels through Queensland’s Granite Belt, we discovered Cypress Ridge Produce - a family-run garlic farm in Ballandean creating exactly that kind of product.
We are excited to welcome four Cypress Ridge favourites to the Chef’s Pantry: Caramelised Garlic Balsamic Vinegar, Australian Crushed Garlic, Caramelised Black Garlic and Smoked Garlic Salt.
We haven’t selected the entire range. Instead, we have started with four products that each bring something different to your cooking—from a quick drizzle over eggs to an easy way to properly season your next steak.
Cypress Ridge is an almost 100-acre property operated by Aaron and Bindi Cox, together with Aaron’s parents, Chris and Carole - and with some assistance from the next generation, although the family jokes that the value of that assistance is still open to debate.
The property began life as a stone-fruit orchard in the 1960s and was being used to grow parsley when the Cox family purchased it in 2008. A water shortage prompted them to replace the parsley with garlic in 2010, beginning a new chapter for the farm.
The product range grew from a simple question: what else could they create using the garlic grown on their own property?
Aaron had previously worked as a chef in several leading Brisbane restaurants, so flavour and versatility were always going to matter. What began with plenty of experimentation and taste testing developed into a collection of artisan garlic products now enjoyed well beyond the Granite Belt.
It is a genuine family operation, with care taken from the first idea and the garlic grown on the farm through to making, packing and sending the finished products out into the world. That connection between the producer and the finished product is one of the things we particularly love about Cypress Ridge.
This is the product that first caught our attention - and one Chef Ian already knows and uses.
Cypress Ridge combines caramelised white balsamic vinegar with its home-grown garlic to create something sweet, savoury and beautifully balanced. The garlic is present without overpowering everything else, while the balsamic brings enough sweetness and acidity to transform very simple food.
If you have watched Ian’s scrambled egg tutorial, you may remember the finishing drizzle of garlic balsamic. It adds another layer of flavour to the eggs without turning breakfast into a complicated production.
Chef Ian’s tip: When using it as a glaze, brush it over meat towards the end of cooking. Its sweetness will caramelise beautifully, but it may catch and burn if it is added too early.
This may be the product we are most curious to put through its paces.
If your experience of jarred garlic is a mild product that needs several generous spoonfuls before you can taste it, Cypress Ridge’s crushed garlic is something quite different. It begins with fresh Australian garlic bulbs that are picked and crushed, producing a much fresher and more concentrated garlic flavour.
The Cox family found that they needed only about one-quarter of the quantity of ordinary minced garlic they had previously used in their recipes. That makes this 200g jar a small but hardworking addition to the pantry.
You still have the convenience of garlic that is ready when you need it - without peeling, chopping or discovering that the bulb in the cupboard has started sprouting - but with the punch and character you expect from fresh garlic.
Use it anywhere you would ordinarily reach for crushed or minced garlic: pasta sauces, curries, marinades, stir-fries, soups, garlic butter, dressings and roasted vegetables.
Chef Ian’s tip: Start with considerably less than you would normally use, then taste and adjust. You can always add more, but this garlic is packed with flavour and may surprise you.
Black garlic begins as ordinary garlic, but time and controlled warmth transform it completely. Aaron’s early experiments involved a small pie warmer, a couple of garlic bulbs and around 40 days of patiently discovering what would happen.
The result is darker, softer and sweeter, with a much gentler garlic character and a deep savoury richness. It is often described as having an almost balsamic or molasses-like quality, making it useful wherever a dish needs depth rather than the sharpness of fresh garlic.
Chef Ian’s tip: Think of black garlic as a flavour enhancer rather than a direct replacement for fresh garlic. A small amount can add a wonderfully rounded savoury note without making the finished dish taste strongly of garlic.
Good cooking begins with seasoning, but many home cooks understandably hold back. It can be difficult to know how much to use, when to add it or what other flavours to combine with it—particularly when cooking a beautiful piece of steak.
Cypress Ridge Smoked Garlic Salt makes that step easier. The garlic is smoked over pecan wood, mixed with pink Himalayan salt and baked so the flavours infuse together. The mixture is then broken down by hand and cold-smoked again for a deeper but still balanced smokiness.
That combination makes it a particularly good steak seasoning. In one step, you are adding salt, garlic and a subtle layer of pecan smoke - the flavours many people are looking for when they fire up the barbecue or heat a pan for steak.
Chef Ian’s tip: Use smoked garlic salt in place of ordinary salt - not in addition to it. Season both sides of your steak, including the edges of a thick cut, and let the flavour become part of the cooking rather than trying to correct the seasoning only after the steak reaches the plate.
We want every product in the Chef’s Pantry to give you a genuine reason to reach for it.
The Caramelised Garlic Balsamic delivers a quick finishing touch or sticky glaze. The Australian Crushed Garlic brings fresh garlic flavour without the preparation. The Caramelised Black Garlic adds sweetness and savoury depth, while the Smoked Garlic Salt makes confident everyday seasoning easier.
Together, they are a small but beautifully useful introduction to Cypress Ridge Produce - and another reminder of how much extraordinary food is being grown and made by family producers throughout the Granite Belt.
We look forward to sharing more recipes, ideas and Chef Ian’s tips as we begin cooking with the range.
