BUSH TUCKER

INSPIRED BY NATIVE INGREDIENTS, STEVE CUMPER CREATES A UNIQUELY TASMANIAN DISH.

There’s something very satisfying about using local, Indigenous ingredients, says chef Steve Cumper.

WHEN I LIVED IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA in the early ’90s, I was amazed to learn that they had enjoyed eating kangaroo for ages while other states were yet to legalise its consumption. This is not lost on the South Aussies who claim a swag of firsts. The Hills Hoist, the stump-jump plough and the wine cask, just to name a few.

Arguably, it may have been the first state in which native foods (bush foods) were uniquely featured in a restaurant setting at Adelaide’s Red Ochre Barrel + Grill by Andrew Felke. It was here that I became aware of the wonderful larder of ingredients that First Nations people had at their disposal for thousands of years.

Trying to scaffold these native ingredients onto our predominantly Anglo, and increasingly international, repertoire of home-cooked meals has been attempted over the years with mixed success. It seems every few years or so some native ingredients pop up for a while and then slink back into the recesses of our collective pantry.

In fact, it was with some embarrassment and a bit of cultural cringe that I learned that famed chef René Redzepi (whose restaurant Noma was once voted the best in the world) was baffled that so many Australian chefs were not utilising the cornucopia of ingredients available to them. He proceeded to interpret his cuisine through these indigenous foodstuffs when he relocated his restaurant from Copenhagen to Sydney to much praise and, it must be added, some of the same awkwardness I expressed earlier from the local cooking fraternity.

Fast forward to the D’entrecasteaux Channel – the body of water separating Bruny Island from mainland Tasmania – to an area called Birchs Bay, where

Fivebob Farm was located. Here is where I got my first taste of Tasmanian native pepper. Founding farmer Chris Read grew native pepper and several other species of natural flora for dried herbs and spice ingredients under the Diemen Pepper brand.

Now Diemen (pronounced demon) of course relates to Van Diemen, but the demon link is apt because of the heat present in the berries. Now it’s not like chilli hot, but more akin to the warmth that a mustard or horseradish can command. When pounded and added to a mayonnaise, they will also colour the resulting mixture with a rich pink blush. I’ve often served this flavoured mayonnaise with cooked and chilled lobster or crabs, but you could also pair it with prawns or other crustacea.

There’s something very satisfying about cooking with the ingredients that are native to your geographical locale. To me, it also kind of makes sense. As I’m always thinking about food it didn’t take me long to project my desire to make a classic dish but swap the original ingredients for ones here in this new (old) world.

I present: wallaby (or roo) with native pepper sauce. They say one should never mess with the classics, but once the idea of making a version of steak with pepper sauce using our native ingredients struck – well, it seems un-australian not to have a crack, don’t you agree?

WALLABY WITH TASMANIAN NATIVE PEPPER SAUCE

Serves 4

2 cups beef or chicken stock

4 x 200g portions of wallaby or

kangaroo fillet

Olive oil for pan frying

Sea salt and cracked black pepper 100g butter

1 onion, finely diced

5 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tsp native peppercorns, crushed Splash of Tasmanian whisky

1 cup cream

2tbs flat leaf parsley, chopped

Preheat your oven to 120oc (you’ll rest the meat in here while making the sauce).

Reduce the 2 cups of stock by a third and reserve for later.

Using a paper towel, pat dry the meat so there is no moisture on the surface. Place the meat on a tray and coat with a slick of olive oil. Season liberally with salt and pepper.

Heat a heavy skillet pan until very hot. Place the fillets down carefully and add a few knobs of butter to the pan to assist the browning of the meat. Turn the meat over to evenly brown the outside. This should take about five minutes. Transfer the meat to a tray in the oven.

Reduce the heat of the pan and place the remaining butter in it. Toss in the onion and saute until translucent. Now add the garlic and the peppercorns. Increase the heat to maximum before adding the whisky and the meat juices from the resting tray. Let the alcohol burn off before adding the reserved stock. Reduce this by half before adding the cream, reduce the heat and let it simmer. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Now add the parsley.

Finally, retrieve the meat and diagonally slice it into 3cm wide pieces against the grain. Place the pieces back into the sauce, spooning it over the meat.

Serve on a platter and accompany with some gratin potatoes and sautéed broccolini.