So. Welcome to the only unique, authentic, modern Australian cuisine.
Please enjoy the discovery of our contribution to world flavours. These Australian recipes give you the clues as to how best to use our native Australian ingredients and more details are given in the notes section (click here). Some Australian ingredients have their peculiarities for maximum effect and this is addressed in the recipes as well as our product glossary.
We trust you will find your favourite Australian recipes in this list or just use it as a guide to make up your own authentic Australian dishes. I hope your visits are frequent and organoleptically rewarding. Please note that this page will be up-dated periodically and if you would like to be notified of up-dates as well as other happenings in the native food industry and more, subscribe to our newsletter
In addition to our Australian native ingredients being easy to get through our new online store, we supply a network of food distributors around the world. If you are a distributor who would be interested in stocking our unique Australian products or you have trouble locating them, please us.
For more Australian Recipes from my TV Series, visit Dining Downunder or more ideas from Benjamin Christie.
These Australian recipes use some of the enhanced seasonings now used by discerning chefs who appreciate the difference and superiority of Oz lemon over lemon myrtle, Alpine pepper over mountain pepper and Fruit spice over forestberry herb.
By far the most common usage for bushfoods is in the flavouring of sweet and savoury sauces. All the conventional considerations of the relationship between sauces and the foods they dress in terms of complementation not domination still apply. Developing native food recipes requires some knowledge of our sense of taste and the balance between them. These tastes are sour, sweet, salt, bitter, aromatic and pungent. The best dishes always include all these tastes in a relatively narrow concentration band as well as all the textures, from smooth to crunchy. Some consideration of the onset of taste is also important and it is possible to have highlights of fast flavours under-pinned by slower ones. Analyse a Caesar salad (the world's most popular hotel restaurant dish) in terms of the above tastes and textures. The tastes of sweet and sour balance each other - a sweet dessert is best served with a sour coulis. Salt is balanced by bitter and vice versa. If eggplant is old and bitter it is salted to mask the bitterness. If a native food dish is too bitter (eg. from too many bush tomatoes or intrinsically bitter as with the wild limes) then salting will retrieve it. Aromatic flavours and pungency also tend to balance and either one to excess is usually over-powering.
The recipes in this list are intended for use with the native food range established by Vic Cherikoff Food Services P/L and now the industry standard. These are highlighted with links to our product glossary. The quantities given are relative to the products in this range as distributed by us. Other companies' products which may have copied names may not have the same application efficiencies of the original Cherikoff product. Chefs will need to continue to experiment as in the past when new ingredients appeared to add flavour to the art of cooking.
The foraging chef should also be aware that native plants particularly, exhibit wide variation in their qualities and what may be an edible species in one part of this country may not be as high in its culinary quality (eg. strength of flavour) or even be harmful in another. Over the next few years there will no doubt be new companies marketing their versions of these same foods and many new foods. Even today, there are a few products promoted as food which may not be foods at all unless properly prepared. For example, quandong kernels HAVE to be well roasted to a chocolate brown colour before being used as a food flavouring otherwise the presence of santalbic acid can be carcinogenic. This is an on-going concern for the emerging native food industry since a well-publicised poisoning could have deleterious and far-reaching repercussions to a fledgling industry. Reputable and established companies dealing in these foods have a responsibility to ensure that their products are edible, of high quality and free of noxious components.
Vic Cherikoff Food Services Pty Ltd , formerly Bush Tucker Supply Australia was the first company to establish the post-Aboriginal native food industry following many years of scientific study and nutritional scrutiny.
Wherever you source the native foods you choose to use, please be conscious of the quality of the ingredients and the credentials of your suppliers.
Copyright 2009 Cherikoff Australian Ingredients.
