What happened to last week??

Hi,

Australia Day came and went so fast as did last week, I think having a public holiday on Tuesday confused everyone. I've been spending a lot of time upgrading the Outback Chef site, it's starting to look good, although it's a bit like house-keeping, the job is never done, you always see something new. But if you do have any ideas or suggestions for improvement, please let me know.

I got a heap of Mountain Pepper leaf in a few days back, the fantastic smell seems to overpower everything else. The pic in this blog is mountain pepper leaf growing in Tasmania.

There won't be any more pepperberries available until next season now, which will be towards the end of April. If you need any let me know and I'll put it on back order.

Have a great week,
Jude

AUSTRALIA DAY

I hope that you all have a great Australia Day today and stay safe on the roads.

We are going to celebrate very simply with a BBQ and cook some Spanish Mackeral that a friend just caught on the beautiful Coolum coast. I'm going to cook it in foil with some lemon myrtle and mountain pepper plus plus, I'll take some pics and let you know how it goes.

Have a great day
Jude

MOUNTAIN PEPPER LEAF

Here's a simple bush food idea to try..........

I had a customer tell me the other day he had tried Outback Chef's mountain pepper leaf on a mash of sweet potato and it was fantastic.

Mountain Pepper is a shrub that grows in the wet areas of SE Australia. The pepper leaf is dried and can be used in the same way as any other pepper would be used. The pepper berries from this plant can be added to a pepper mill and again used in the same way as you'd grind the black pepper. It's really hot and also has a slight eucalyptus flavour which adds to the enjoyment.

Growing Bush tomatoes and smokey water

An "old bushie" told me the other day that if you smoke some water and put it on your bush tomatoes they grow well. Bush tomatoes, as we know, grow in the heat of the desert and need a good bushfire to propogate. Now if you take your billy-can and put it over a fire and allow the smoke of the fire to get in the water then when its cold water your bush tomatoes, they will love it and prosper!

The bush tomatoes pictured opposite are the dried version, you can buy them from www.makingtracks.com.au. When using grind them first.

Coral Trout cooked in paperbark

If you want to try some bush food, why not get yourself a fish, vegetable, peel some paperbark off a tree and cook it over the BBQ.....this recipe is delicious and simple to prepare......if you go to www.makingtracks.com.au (or click on Outback Chef logo opposite) for a full pictorial step by step guide. Let me know what you think.

Bush Tomatoes

I've just got some new bush tomatoes in, they were a little hard to get last year due to climatic conditions. Bush Tomatoes are still native harvested and most of the time are dried in the sun.

Bush tomatoes grow in the desert areas of Australia they are an important crop and one of the Aboriginal people's most precious fruit.

The plants will grow in force for a few seasons and then dry off waiting for the next bushfire to regenerate. Aboriginal women collect these fruits when dried in their coolamuns (a carved wooden dish) grind them to a fine powder add water to form a paste, roll them into balls to be dried again and stored in the trees for use later, this way they would keep for many months.

The fruit, after drying in the sun, looks like a raisin and is a reddish/brown colour. They can make you ill if you eat too many of them when they are fresh, the drying process reduces the level of alkaloids in the fruit.

The bush tomato has a spicy flavour and can be used in many recipes. For recipe ideas go to www.bushfoodrecipes.com.au