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Indigenous Ingredients Inspire The Great Australian Dinner

Indigenous Ingredients Inspire The Great Australian Dinner

by Mireille Kilgour

According to David Chang, the young impresario of the Momofoku restaurants, "Australian cuisine is still a work in progress" – no one really knows exactly what it is that makes a dish definitively Australian.

On October 27th, Chang was part of The Great Australian Dinner, an event held at The Star Events Centre in Pyrmont. The evening featured dishes from chefs such as Neil Perry, Rene Redzepi, Mark Best, Kylie Kwong and Martin Benn and to all of these chefs, Australian cuisine is a symbol of diversity.

Even so, they all played homage to the land beneath our feet and turned to indigenous ingredients for their Great Australian Dinner:

According to Daily Life, the baskets that were given to the chefs were filled with ingredients many may not have even heard of, let alone used in cooking – muntries, quandongs, native rice and riberries.

Redzepi chose to include green ants in his menu, along with Angasi oysters and saltbush.

Kwong also turned to ants for their tangy, fresh bush flavour and added mealworms and saltbush.

Benn opted for lemon aspen with his West Australian marron.

Brent Savage of Bentley chose to work with kangaroo and Dan Hunter of Brae cooked with wallaby and wattle seed.

For Rockpool's Perry, he couldn't go past combining Asian flavours with Australian, as he believes it makes sense to combine the two.

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Mireille Kilgour

Mireille Kilgour has been an entrepreneur for 35 years in the hospitality sector. French born, she has been an accomplished business owner and operator for a number of Sydney venues. Leading the industry with high profile institutions such as Lamrock Café Bondi, she has endless passion for the industry, and now has the pleasure of supporting restaurants to fill their tables with the new Good Food Gift Card program.