Homemade Pizzas Featuring Native Australian Flavours

June 15, 2016 By Julie Weatherhead Leave a Comment

We had a very special family time over the June long weekend. We all worked together to bake pizza in our woodfired oven flavoured with the native food spices of Lemon Myrtle, Mountain Pepper, Native Thyme and Strawberry Gum. These recipes are featured in our new Peppermint Ridge Farm book on growing and cooking with native foods in your own backyard – it will be available soon! We are taking orders for advanced copies if you’re interested.

It is really easy to use these native food plants in your everyday cooking. All of these spices are available right now from the Peppermint Ridge Native Food online store–order and start cooking!

Pizzas

Start by making up a spice mix that you can use on pretty much any savoury dish. The trick is to add some of the mix right at the end of the cooking by simply sprinkling it over before serving.

Lemon Myrtle Spice Mix

Process together until a fine – 15 large fresh Lemon Myrtle leaves, 10 fresh large Mountain Pepper leaves, 1 clove garlic, 1/4 tsp salt, pinch of ground black pepper.

If using dried leaves use 1 Tbsp Lemon Myrtle and 1/2 Tbsp Mountain Pepper, or 1.5 Tbsp of our Lemon Myrtle + Mountain Pepper Spice Mix (available here).

Strawberry Gum Spice Mix

Replace the Lemon Myrtle with 1 Tbsp dried Strawberry Gum powder.

Pizza Dough

This is the recipe that never fails us here: Makes about 4 large pizzas.

200g medium ground Semolina flour
250g white “tipo 00” flour
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp dried yeast
290 mls warm water

Mix and knead until smooth. Place in a bowl and cover with oiled clingfilm and leave to double in size (about 90 minutes).

Pull off handfuls and roll out to cover your pizza pan.

Brush with olive oil, spread over some of our Warrigal Greens pesto or any other pesto and sprinkle over some of the Lemon Myrtle spice mix. Now place your favourite toppings over the base – we used a combination of salami/ham, capsicum, mushroom, onion, pineapple and topped our selection with mozzarella cheese, or we used roasted pumpkin, onion, blue cheese and honey. Bake until the base is golden and the top crisp – around 10 minutes. Sprinkle more spice mix over the cooked pizza and enjoy!

The secret to good pizza is to have the base of the oven very hot and it cooks from underneath as well as from on top. If you don’t have a wood fired oven, a heated pizza stone in your kitchen oven will do the trick. You may need to pre-bake the pizza dough before adding the toppings when using a conventional oven to ensure the center cooks thoroughly.

For our second pizza we used the Strawberry Gum spice mix with tomato pasta sauce or tomato paste on the base, mix in about 1 tsp of the spice for a small pizza. When the pizza is cooked sprinkle a little more of the Strawberry Gum powder over before serving. Strawberry Gum has an amazing affinity with tomato and will create a wonderful taste experience.

Have fun cooking your pizzas!

Strawberry Gum Ice Cream or Custard

April 13, 2016 By Julie Weatherhead Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, I posted an article about the wonderful flavours and exciting benefits of Strawberry Gum (Eucalyptus olida), including a recipe for my Strawberry Gum Bliss Balls. I’d like to share another one of my favourite Strawberry Gum recipes with you–this one is versatile and can be made into either a custard or ice cream. Try both–they’re equally delicious!

This will make one of the best custards you have ever tasted! You can serve it before freezing with poached fruit or puddings. The Strawberry Gum adds a delightful flavour that is hard to describe. You will just have to try it for yourself.

The custard makes a wonderful ice cream if churned in an ice cream maker.

Strawberry Gum Custard or Ice Cream

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This is custard will be one of the best you have ever tasted so you can serve it before freezing with poached fruit or puddings. The Strawberry Gum adds a delightful flavour that is hard to describe. You will just have to try it for yourself. The custard makes a wonderful ice cream if churned in an ice cream maker.

Author: Julie Weatherhead

Recipe type: Dessert

Cuisine: Australian

Ingredients

8 fresh Strawberry Gum leaves or 2 tbsp dried crushed leaves (tie into a muslin bag for infusing)
6 free range egg yolks – (use the whites to make meringues and add some dried Strawberry Gum spice to the mix – delicious)
1 cup cream
1 cup milk
150gm sugar or to taste

Instructions

Heat milk, cream, sugar and leaves in a saucepan until boiling point.
Turn off heat and allow flavours to infuse for 15 minutes.
Take out the bag of leaves and return flavoured milk to a clean saucepan.
Whisk in the eggs and increase heat slowly, whisky constantly until mixture thickens to coat the back of a wooden spoon.
Take off heat and cool, refrigerate and later churn in an ice cream maker until frozen if desired.

Note: If you’d like to taste the wonderful flavours of Strawberry Gum and other native Australian edible plants, come to our Bush Food Flavours Lunch this Sunday, April 17. Bookings available here.

Special thanks to Susan Gordon-Brown for her lovely pictures.

Let me know what you think about this recipe in the comments section. I’d love to hear from you!

Strawberry Gum Bliss Balls

April 12, 2016 By Julie Weatherhead 1 Comment

We have been experimenting with Strawberry Gum (Eucalyptus olida) here at Peppermint Ridge as the dried leaves make a wonderful spice. The fresh leaves are fine to use in cooking too and will keep in a ziplock bag in the fridge for weeks.

Strawberry gum tree in flower. Photo credit: Susan Gordon-Brown.

Strawberry Gum is a very rare tree from Northern New South Wales that we have been propagating here at the Farm. The tree is hardy if you can get a hold of one. Strawberry Gum leaves can be made into a spice by first drying and then grinding the leaves in a food processor – the ground leaves will last for 2 years if kept in a cool, dark place.

The best news about Strawberry Gum is that it tastes great – a bit like vanilla, strawberry, or passionfruit – but it really has a flavour all its own that is hard to describe. This unique flavour comes from an essential oil in the leaf called Methyl Cinnamate, which acts as an enhancer to any dish.

This spice will enhance and draw out flavour to anything with berries, tomato based sauces, dairy or coconut milk dishes such as custards, ice creams, or pannacotta. It also makes a wonderful hot drink when a little is added to your favourite black or green tea.

Use sparingly as the flavour can be strong, you can always add more if the taste is too subtle.

There are amazing health benefits to using the leaves in your cooking. The chemicals found in the leaves are high in antioxidants and the oil is antimicrobial against foodborne human pathogens, food spoilage bacteria, and yeasts assisting in keeping a healthy microbial balance in the human gut. Very important if you have been taking antibiotics or have been unwell.

So there are no negatives to using this plant in the kitchen!

TOP TIP:

Infuse the leaves in hot milk, sugar, and cream to make the base for custard, ice cream, or pannacotta.

Note: coconut or almond milk can be used just as effectively. We like to add a small amount of the chopped dried leaf to black tea for an extra antioxidant and flavour lift.

Here is a recipe to get you inspired–more coming later this week!