I recently developed an interest in Australian food. Not the lamington, ANZAC cookie, TimTam, vegemite on everything kind of fare (although soooo very good in their own right). Rather, utilising native Australian herbs, spices and methods in cooking more interesting dishes. Truth be told, my research led me to mostly fish and meat based recipes (not that big a deal as most recipes can be adapted, as we are learning from Hezbollah tofu!). But as I was searching through Benjamin Christie’s website I came across this nice sounding recipe for a paperbark smoked vegetable parcel I didn’t have all the ingredients listed in the recipe (although, oddly I did have some paperbark I recently bought from the markets), but made do with potato, carrot and green capsicum all thinly sliced. I layered half the amount of the vegetables on to the paperbark then seasoned with salt, pepper and an Australian spice mix called yakajirri (bush tomato). I then repeated the layering and seasoning and rolled the parcel up and tied both ends with string.
It was so quick to cook – only 20mins at 200-220 degrees celcius. I didn’t have the tomato relish that was a garnish in the original recipe, but I topped the parcel with dry roasted roughly chopped macadamia nuts and a side of mashed potato:
It definitely had a smoky flavour to it, and the bush tomato spice mix was a really nice addition. I’m thinking tofu with a dry rub will be the next thing to be wrapped with the paper bark.
