Australia: Cuisine bonanza

Iconic Australia: Introduction

Not many look towards Australian cuisine with any awe or wonder. Many are not even aware of what Australian cuisine really is, is it just meat and vegemite? Aussie cuisine is a lot more diverse than most people are aware and a lot of it is very delectable. Due to the influx of migrants in the 20th century Australian cuisine includes inspirations from Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Chinese, Japanese and many more. Here we’ll take a look at some of the iconic foods we enjoy down under.

Snacks and Drinks

Weet-Bix

Let's start off light and tasty. A widely popular brekkie that you’ll see a large amount of Aussies enjoying on a daily basis and starting to make a grand appearance in mainland China is Weet-Bix.

You’ll find plenty of young Joeys enjoying this high fiber, low sugar and overall nutritious biscuit cereal doused in generous amounts of milk before a busy school day. Its flexibility with toppings such as bananas, strawberries, kiwis, honey, cinnamon, sultanas, sugar etc make it widely popular with people of all ages.

This brekkie is not only enjoyed in Australia, which caught on with the catchphrase “Aussie kids are Weet-bix kids’, but also in New Zealand with its copied slogan of “Kiwi Kids are Weet-bix kids” and in South Africa. As a staple breakfast meal you could buy these in practically any supermarket and all cereal selling convenience stores.

(Source: News Limited)

Milo

A complete aussie breakfast is near incomplete without your trusty mug and a huge helping heap of milo with warm or cold milk. This iconically aussie malt and chocolate powder drink can also be found in breakfast cereal or snack bar form. It was named after the famous ancient athlete Milo of Croton and is produced by Nestle. Milo produced outside of Australia has ingredients and measurements alterations to better suit local circumstances. It is a nutritious drink with calcium, carbohydrates and many vitamins. For those looking to enjoy this filling drink with lower calories from milk, water is a good alternative to mix in.

Before I began buying the stuff down in Adelaide, I was first introduced to Milo when I was visiting a half aussie mate in Lebanon. He had a rather unique take on the drink. His recipe amounted to full fat milk, mixed with a huge tablespoons of milo and perhaps too generous spoonfuls of sugar (My pancreas was telling me no, but my taste buds took priority). My favourite part about Milo is that often you have floating clumps of milo on the top of your mug which allows for a divine taste along with your heavenly drink. Milo can be found in supermarkets and many convenience stores Australia-wide.

Coffee

A great addition to Weet-bix would be grabbing some locally brewed coffee. Australians pride themselves for the taste and refinement of their caffeine packed drink. Starbucks has failed to fully integrate itself into Australian coffee drinking habits compared to many other countries such as in coffee guzzling France, America and more as local coffee shops prove to provide an authentic taste many locals are wholly satisfied with.

The two most popular coffees from a wide group of an enjoyable ‘pick me ups’ are the heavy hitting long blacks for a long day of work and play and the all rounder enjoyable flat whites. A Long black is a combination of hot water and a double shot of espresso or ristretto. Similar to a latte, Flat whites are lighter, made with microfoam (a form of steamed milk) and an espresso shot. For a more potent punch you could ask to have a double shot of espresso added with the microfoam.

Australian cities and towns sport many outdoor coffee shops where you could easily find these two popular hot drinks. From these coffee shops you can enjoy some beautiful blue skies on a warm aussie day with a mate, your laptop, a book or simply watching the world pass by.

Tim Tams

One of the most iconic Australian chocolate snacks of all time is easily taken away by the Tim Tam. Smooth cream sandwiched between two chocolate coated biscuits is a snack produced by Arnott’s many within Australia (including myself) like to keep within arm’s reach at all times.

If you are unsure of the original sweet delight and crave for something with a stronger sugar punch (Are you mad?), go for the uncompromising double coated chocolate tim tam pack. If you’re more of a white chocolate lover, Tim Tams have got you covered with white cream smothered within two white chocolate covered biscuits. Do you prefer a slightly bitter dark chocolate taste? Say no more! Tim tams also come in Classic Dark flavours with either regular or raspberry cream filled biscuits. Perhaps you want a break from the flavour of chocolates after you stuffed yourself with all variety of tim tams? Go for the cheeky chewy caramel filling tim tams which has an overwhelmingly delicious taste that is questionably legal.

Arnotts are not shy to risk it all by cycling through temporary tim tam flavours such as chocolate and black forest, chocolate mint, peanut butter, coconut and lychee, salted caramel and vanilla and many more. These mouth-watering chocolate biscuits can be found in any supermarket and the majority of convenience stores Australia wide. If you manage to get your hands on a packet of the tams, make sure to do the ‘Tim Tam Slam’ challenge with your favourite locally brewed coffee or some milo to partake a true aussie tradition.

Cherry Ripe

One of my all time favourites and Australia’s oldest chocolate bar, Cherry Ripe is a unique piece of food culture. Cheap as chips, Cherry Ripes are a common chocolate bar to have in hand and very popular nationwide. Cherry ripes are dark chocolate bars coated in desiccated coconut and filled with cherry. Due to their popularity, Cherry Ripes can be found in many places ranging from supermarkets to petrol stations. This is the only chocolate bar I binged ate and I highly recommend it for any snack bar connoisseurs, casual chocolate consumers or just the curious at heart.

Fantales

Another confectionary that has kept a sugary place in Aussie hearts are Fantales. These are semi hard caramel chocolate covered sweets wrapped in blue and yellow wrappers. These wrappers have movie stars and films printed on them. The information changes decade to decade. Nowadays you could find information on Hugh Jackman, High school Musical, Wolverine, Grease and many many more.

Popular with kids and even adults, you can easily grab a bag of these from any supermarket, convenience store or petrol station. Many fairs, meetings or even regular offices would stock up on these for general consumption as they are a great mini mood-booster.

Vegemite

The saltiest of all Australian snacks is an award unequivocally held by this black spread. Arguably the most well known product from Australia, Vegemite is made using the leftover yeast extract of brewer products added with different vegetable and spices into the mix. Vegemite is filled spread is flexible as other spreads as it could be added to any bread, cracker, crumpet with a healthy dose of butter or as is.

Vegemite is a spread not only rich in vitamin B but also in history and is a staple in many Australian diets. Vegemite is a product spawned from the disruption of trade of marmite from Britain in 1919 and an alternative had to be made using the leftover yeast from breweries. A recipe was crafted and the only thing remained was to name the black spread. A nationwide competition was held with the winner acquiring £50 (Roughly 3,500AUD in 2010). The winner’s name was picked out of a hat by a lady called Sheila (can’t get more Aussie than that).

A special mention and one of my favourite spreads of all time goes to Cheesybite which has less of a salty taste but instead has a strong cheesy taste mixed with vegemite which would help ease those wanting to tackle the behemoth that is a Vegemite spread sandwich. Jars of both Cheesybite and Vegemite can be found nationwide in your local supermarket or convenience store.

Fairy bread

This one's a crowd pleaser for many Aussies. It's also been an interesting one to fix up when travelling overseas due to the reaction from people. If you ever want to make something that attracts and pleases those around you (or shocks), look no further!

This light snack is an easy-to-make combination with ingredients found in any of your local delis. It is pure white square bread cut in half into majestic triangles with a heavenly butter spread which is covered in colorful hundreds and thousands (an alternative are sprinkles). Feel free to bring these to any pot-luck dinner for the shock factor.

Anzac Cookies

Here’s a hard sweet biscuit that’ll please hardcore coconut fans. Anzac biscuits combine rolled oats, golden syrup,basic baking ingredients such as flour and sugar and the desicated coconut. For those who prefer a more oaty taste or dislike coconut, you can remove coconut and maintain its flavoursome composition.

Anzac biscuits also pack a bit of history in them. These biscuits were sent during World War l due to the ingredients not spoiling easily during naval travel. The army manufactures similar hardtack products called Anzac tiles and wafers. These are much harder and have a much longer shelf life.

They are especially popular on Remembrance Day (ANZAC day).These biscuits are provided by many bakeries, convenience stores, supermarkets and even pop-up stalls during ANZAC day.

Lamingtons

The discovery of this scrumptious snack dates back to the years of my youth. My mom would always call me to help her make these mini-cakes. In essence, they are double stacked sponge cakes sandwiched with either cream or strawberry jam and soaked in chocolate. We would top it off by sprinkling desiccated coconut on the sticky chocolate goodness.

Lamingtons are easy to make at home and very popular to bring to group dinners or just enjoy a casual choco-coco rush at will. They are found widespread in supermarkets and bakeries. They can also be found in many school or charity fundraisers known as lamington drives. And, as is tradition in Australia linguistics, some aussies shorten the original lamington names to Lammos.

(Source: Coles)

Chocolate Crackles

If you’re looking  for an easy to make Aussie sweet snack recipe without the use of an oven, you have the kid--friendly chocolate crackles (also called chocolate bubble cakes). This cereal snack only requires  icing sugar, cocoa, vegetable shortening, desiccated coconut (always a favourite down under) and Rice Bubbles or Coco Pops cereal.

The simplicity of making these snacks makes it a very popular option in birthday parties and even a fun activity for your kids to boost their baking confidence. Arguably one of the easiest pseudo dessert-snacks to make down under. The ingredients can be found in any supermarket.

Meals, Meats and Mains

All in all, Australians have an interesting take to many of their snacks and the list above is deffo an incomplete one. The variety is surprisingly plentiful for your taste buds from salty Vegemite to sugar fueled Milos to creamy Tim Tams. However, to understand the gist of Australian cuisine, we have to look at many of the main meals, barbecue grub and more. However, many of the more popular dishes in Australia are influenced by foreign ones found in Vietnamese, Indian and many other cuisines. This is due to the diversity of the land down under and its proximity to nearby rich food cultures. In this section we shall focus on predominantly Australian made (or ‘modified’)  popular foods.

Barbecues

The stereotypes are very true, it's rare to find an aussie who doesn’t enjoy a good shrimp on the barbie on a beautiful hot day. Barbies are seen as not only a great social event to meet your mates for some quality time with a couple of tinnies (cans of beers) from a slab (24 pack of beers), but also an overwhelmingly delicious meal. Here down under Australians pride themselves for the quality of their cuts and steaks.

Australia has many cattle stations peppered around the country. Some of these stations are mind bogglingly massive like the Anna Creek Station with an area of 23,677 square kilometers, roughly the size of Belgium.

In my current city of Adelaide, it is easy to access one of many barbies sprinkled around the city for a casual day out with some mates.

For low-budget barbies it's common to grab beef or pork snags (sausages). Slap them on some bread (usually white square bread, and add sauce (the trinity: bbq sauce, ketchup or mustard).

If you have a moderate budget you’ll want to add some juicy steaks and burger patties to make some lean and mean burgers. You could be flexible with your meat as in Australia it is easier and more affordable to buy crocodile, emu and kangaroo meat to cook up. Crocodile skewers are a very tasty must. If you use an electric barbie or a metal plate you can fry up some onions. If you’re keen to taste an Australian styled burger you could grill up a meat patty and eat it with onions, tomatoes, salad cheese and the prime ingredient: beetroot.

It is also common to cook up different vegetables such as capsicum (peppers), corn on a cob,tomato, onions and pretty much anything you can get your hands on. Feta cheese and vegetarian sausages are not too uncommon either.

After having enjoyed the day with a great Barbie with mates, you may find yourself keen to further experience Australian life by watching the Footy (Australian football). The Footy has its own group of ‘traditional’ foods besides the regular nachos, hotdogs and burgers you find in most sports venues. They aren’t exactly full blown meals but are still worthy of mentioning.

Footy Foods

Meat pies

We’ll start off with good ol’ meat pies. These pastries are hand sized and stuffed with diced or minced meat, mushrooms or onions and gravy. I would normally buy these during a footy game after a long day. As I used to work on one of the stadiums I also was able to see first hand how popular these meat pastries are. From little Joey to old Gramps enjoy eating one of these. They are especially perfect on a cold winter's day as the hot meaty core will heat up the flesh and the soul. An icon not only in Straya but also New Zealand. Its common to squeeze some ketchup on one of these piping hot bad boys to augment the flavour.

(Source: Guy Bailey)

Sausage rolls

Another popular option when watching the footy. Sausage rolls are a meat mixture of either beef or pork wrapped in a puff pastry and baked. They go well with ketchup and barbecue sauce. They’re great for a light snack to keep you going before your post-game watching meal back home.

Dim sims

You may rightly believe that this one is a Chinese dish. However, while it is Chinese inspired (from Dim sums), it is a fully Australian snack. It is a mixture of spiced meat and vegetables wrapped up into a normally rectangular dumpling. Vegetarian dim sims are another alternative that are often filled with cabbage, carrots cheese, mushrooms, seasoning and much more  They are often deep fried in sports games to satisfy cravings for rich food. It is also possible to find steamed dim sums for a healthier option. The main difference between their Chinese counterparts is Dim sims are a larger size with a much thicker dough skin. You usually would buy a group of four as they are normally bite-sized snacks. However, it is also possible to find much larger varieties. Regardless of size, I have often enjoyed the rich flavour of this pastry after a long shift working in the stadium. They go well with barbecue, although many sauces do the job.

Chiko Rolls

Another savoury snack much loved down under is the Chiko roll. My family used to live in Queensland Australia and would fondly recall their favourite snack. It was popular in my family and they all encouraged me to try it. I was not in a rush, but after a few years from their first encouragement I tried this pastry during an outback round trip. The flavour was very enjoyable. Chico rolls are another Chinese inspired creation, this snack is filled with green beans, beef, wheat cereal, celery, cabbage, onions and barely. They are encased in a hard pastry to protect them from bumps and handling in sporting events (which is where they were popularised) as getting around in a packed sporting event may cause a bit of damage to your delicious goods.

Dagwood dog

One of my pet favourites of the footy foods is the Dagwood dog. It isn’t particularly unique or original in the world. It's a very simple and common snack found in many Australian sporting events, festivals and fairs. In essence, it's a sausage deep fried in batter and optionally doused with any sauce under the sun. The rest of the world call them corn dogs.

Seafood

Australia also has several decent options for fish lovers ,pescatarians and simply those curious due to its complete bordering of the sea and its proximity to large fishing industries in neighbouring nations. The large migrant population of Southern Europeans and South East Asians have reinvigorated the creation of a new variety of fish based dishes. Below we have a couple of the most popular of the many different seafood dishes and takeaways.

Fish and Chips

A dish made wholeheartedly British (although its origin is credited to Jewish refugees in Portugal and Spain several centuries ago). However, it is a very common dish in Australia, especially for those heading off to the beach. It is a dish that inspires nostalgia into many Australians as it is the most common takeaway to have on a beach day. It is less common to prepare it at home but its not unheard of.

The majority of fish and chips places use basa, hoki or southern blue whiting in their fish and beer batter their fries, which are tastier (albeit even less healthier) than regular fries. Beer battering provides it with its iconic taste. It is also very common for the fish itself to be beer battered. The majority of times I hit the beach for a spot of sun and sea I end up ravaging a fish and chips with tartar sauce. Pretty much any city, from my experience, that is next to the sea has at least a few of these shops close to the shore for a nice lunch or takeaway.

Barramundi

If you’re looking for something with a more intricate taste you may want to try the Barramundi. The origin of the word Barramundi is Aboriginal for large scaled silver fish. This fish is native to Australia and much of the Indo pacific.

This fish goes with many things with simple lemon and salt to high classed dining preparations. I highly recommend a try of crispy skin Barramundi with a side of oven potatoes and cherry tomatoes. This dish has to be one of my top fish based dishes this year.

Vegetarian dishes

Australia may not have a high number of original vegetarian dishes. It does, however, have some very delectable ones which I recommend for anyone to try regardless of food preferences.

Roasted Kumara Salad

We’ll start off with a personal favourite. This dish comes in different varieties with many different ingredients including bacon for those who prefer a meaty portion.  The star of this salad is the roasted sweet potatoes. From there you have wide options of ingredients to add to it.

My personal favourite recipe a mate once made for me is a vegetarian one which includes roasted sweet potatoes with goat cheese, pecans and rocket salad. La creme de la creme dressing for this dish is a honey-lemon combination with dijon mustard which brings forth a taste completely out of this world. If you’re working on your diet down under, make sure to enjoy one of these. Roasted pumpkins go well with this flexible sweet potato dish.

(Source: Maplespice.com)

Macadamia Pesto Pasta

The humble macadamia nut has its origin in Australia. You can find this nut in almost any supermarket with many prepared varieties such as honey roasted macadamias, salty, blanched etc. The large influx of local macadamias to Aussie society has allowed a diversity of different dishes to be born thanks to this nut.

This simple salad deceptively punches above its weight. The combination of raw macadamias, pesto, garlic, basil and parmigiano reggiano cheese mixed with a few other greens and lemons provides a deliciously full taste. I have made this dish on more than one occasion for my foreign housemates. The first time they were shocked that macadamia’s was an actual addition to this salad. I reckon it's my favourite part and I tend to over saturate the amount of macadamias mixed with pesto if I was in the mood for a richer meal.

Honorable mention:

Pavlova

This creamy cake is always group dinner friendly and very welcomed. I recall, the first time I had one of these had been for a mate’s birthday. I was not used to seeing creamy fruity cakes although I thoroughly enjoyed the taste. This dish is named after Anna Pavlova, the Russian ballerina. A hotel chef specially baked the dish during Anna’s visit to Australia and New Zealand. There’s been an incessant debate between the two nations of the nationality of the hotel chef so as to gain bragging rights of the dish. Regardless, since its inception it's been a hit.

The dish is a Meringue and fruit based cake topped with whipped cream. Its pretty diverse in the selection of fruits ranging  from strawberries, kiwis, passion fruit pomegranates etc. However it is traditionally the latter three fruit found on many Pavlovas.

This dessert is great to have after any meal and you can find everything you need in a supermarket. Even a pre-baked cake ready to be designed with fruit and whipped cream to blossom into a Pavlova. I highly recommend paying the extra aussie bucks to make the cake from scratch as the quality, from my experience, has been quite different.

Conclusion:

Australian cuisine is very much alive and defined. Australia tends to bring a fusion to its food. Some of its most iconic foods are born from hardship in the 20th century such as World War I. What makes Australia different from many traditional cuisines is that it's open to the introduction of new foods. This is especially apparent with food fusions from China, Vietnam, India and many other Asian nations. This list is not an exhaustive one and you will find many wonderful (and sometimes peculiar) foods to eat down under that have not made an appearance on this list. Take a walk on the wild side when you visit Straya and indulge yourself on the unique tastes that we have to offer.

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