Australian bush ingredients on the menu

HOLD the jalapeno and serve me up some bunya bunya nuts. Aussie bush plants are being embraced by restaurants.

Orana’s wild pea salad with muntries, a shrub native to South Australia and Victoria.

ISNÂ’T it funny? How familiar we are with foods from the other side of the world. You pick up a menu, you see the likes of jalapeño, burrata and serrano ham (perhaps not all in the same dish, but Â…) and you know — roughly — what youÂ’re ordering and what each will taste like.

Now, what can you tell me about the taste of muntries? Saltbush? Riberries? Bunya bunya nuts?

Uh-huh. Yes, they might be right under our noses, but all those local, seasonal and sustainable native Australian ingredients are more foreign to most of us than something from South America, Italy or Spain.

It’s time to catch up. Some of the smartest restaurants in the nation are cooking with bush fruits, greens, seeds and spices (not to mention wallaby and kangaroo), and their numbers are growing. So here’s a little primer, so you can show off your knowledge next time you’re dining out. Or just for when you’re walking by the seaside, spotting the ruby saltbush plants.

Happy Australia Day.

ON A MENU NEAR YOU:

Hill of Grace Restaurant, Adelaide Oval

Coffin Bay oysters with finger lime roe and lemon foam

Mountain pepper & lemon myrtle baby squid, squid ink sauce, tomato, crispy saltbush

Grilled octopus, grilled eggplant, kakadu plum chutney

Adobo pork belly, muntries, quandongs, crispy adobo, coriander

Orana, Adelaide

Beef tendon, macadamia & quandong

Cured suckling pig & riberry

Crisp saltbush, kutjera & sour cream

Seared prawn & Davidson plum

Sprouted bunya nut with spruce oil

Attica, Melbourne

Salted Red Kangaroo and Bunya Bunya

Billy Kwong, Sydney

Steamed vegetable & Warrigal greens dumplings

Baked Mini Wallaby Buns with Davidson’s plum Sauce

Bar H, Sydney

Rose geranium pavlova, yuzu curd and muntries

Saltbush and chili

THE INGREDIENTS:

Mountain pepper

Made from the dried berries of Tasmannia lanceolata, mountain pepper is a pungent spice. The berries form in autumn on female plants of a dense shrub or tree with striking red stems, from mountainous regions of Tasmania and southeast Australia. It grows best in fertile, moist soils, in part shade. The shiny, aromatic leaves are also used to flavour vinegars and casseroles. The related Dorrigo pepper (T. stipitata) is used in a similar way.

Saltbush

Old Man saltbush (Atriplex nummularia) is a large, sprawling shrub with silver leaves due to their salty, scaly coating. Saltbush withstands drought and saline soils, makes a good windbreak, is fire-retardant and useful fodder for cattle and sheep. Mike Quarmby of bush foods producer Outback Pride has helped develop superior varieties for the gourmet market. Dried saltbush flakes are used as a herb, while the leaves are stir-fried or used to wrap meat. Says Hill of Grace head chef Dennis Leslie: “Saltbush has a unique herbaceous flavour with a slight salty finish.”

Lemon myrtle

Backhousia citriodora is a beautiful, dense-headed tree from east coast rainforests, bearing profuse, cream flower clusters through summer. But it’s the fragrant leaves, reminiscent of lemon verbena, that are used for teas, seafood, baked goods and desserts. The essential oil, citral, is also used in soaps and other toiletries. It’s a good backyard or street tree in most climates. Closely related aniseed myrtle (Backhousia anisata) has anise-scented leaves.

Quandong

Also called desert peach, quandongs come from the arid inland, in red sandy spinifex country. The plum-sized fruits are borne in abundance on a small tree, Santalum acuminatum, which is related to sandalwood. The trees are partly parasitic on other tree roots, and have narrow, pendulous leaves. As quandongs ripen from yellow-green to bright scarlet their flavour and sweetness intensifies. “Quandongs are surprisingly tart (high in vitamin C) — like a mouthful of citrus at the beginning of the palate, finishing with an earthy peach-like flavour,” says Dennis Leslie.

Riberry

The crimson berries of a lillypilly, Syzygium luehmannii, riberries were one of the early-adopted bush foods. This rainforest tree can reach 10m but is commonly grown as a hedging plant for its weeping foliage and pretty new growth in lipstick shades. Riberries are related to cloves (the unopened flower buds of Syzygium aromaticum) and the mostly seedless fruit have a clove-like nuance.

Warrigal greens

This spreading ground cover with thick, succulent stems is common around salty riverbanks, marshes and sand dunes in Australia and New Zealand. Tetragonia tetragonioides, also called New Zealand spinach and Botany Bay greens, was a nutritious green for early settlers. The thick, soft, arrowhead-shaped leaves should be lightly blanched to remove excess oxalic acid. Says Billy Kwong’s Kylie Kwong: “The taste is like English spinach. They’re great simply stir-fried with ginger, peanut oil, soy and sesame oil.”

Bunya bunya nuts

The Queensland bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) is related to Norfolk Island pines and monkey-puzzle trees, ancient conifers that bear large cones. The enormous, pineapple-shaped bunya cones can weigh up to 10kg, shattering when they fall from high up the 40m trees. The seeds have hard shells, enclosing 3cm kernels with a chestnut-like taste. Trees bear cones every three years or so. Says Attica’s Ben Shewry: “The flavour is of pine, but much fresher and cleaner than regular imported pine nuts.”

Davidson’s plum

One of the tastiest bush fruits, these are plum-sized, purplish and juicy when ripe in summer and autumn, if rather acidic. They hang in generous clusters from the trunks of Davidsonia pruriens, a tall, narrow rainforest tree originally from northern NSW to Queensland. Trees are widely sold for home gardens where they grow to 6m. The large leaves have toothed edges and are flushed pink when new.

Muntries

With a flavour and texture akin to dried apples, muntries are the pea-sized, fleshy fruits of Kunzea pomifera (pomifera translates as bearing apples). When ripe in late summer and autumn, their downy skin is pink to purple. The plant is a low, creeping shrub from the sand dunes and mallee of South Australia and Victoria, with small, stiff, glossy leaves and profuse feathery cream flowers. They thrive in salty, windy, coastal conditions.

Kakadu plum

Resembling olives, Kakadu plums are the fruit of Terminalia ferdinandiana, a tall, slender tree native to north-western Australia. When ripe they change from green to yellow or purplish and soften, but they remain sour with a high acid content. They’re very high in vitamin C.