Macadamia & Ginger Chilli Crisp
For our love of native Australian ingredients.
We’ve spoken before about our endless love for native Australian ingredients. Alongside wild foraging and mushrooms, it’s something we both revel in — swapping ideas for how to cook with them, marvelling at new flavours we’ve discovered, or sharing our local foraging spots. We’ve even been known to pull over on the side of the road to explore a patch (in one particularly delicious case, Warrigal greens on the way to Byron Bay) spotted growing among the roadside scrub, simply just to admire their wild, unplanned beauty.
But most of all, we love that these ingredients are truly one of a kind — unique to the Indigenous culture of this land and rooted in a long history of both food and medicine that we’re still all learning to understand and appreciate. For us, they represent the ultimate expression of local food — ingredients that grow here, belong here, and carry the stories of place. This NAIDOC Week, it only felt right to share a new recipe (and revisit some of our previous ones) that celebrates exactly that.
We turned to one of our favourite staple condiments — a hot, crispy chilli oil. It’s a favourite for a reason. It goes on just about anything and has the power to turn the ordinary into something special. Fry your mushrooms or eggs in it (obviously), swirl it into hummus for dipping (an oldie but a goodie), or mix it into butter and spread onto sandwiches (you have to try it).
In our version we’ve swapped in macadamias for the textural bite you would usually get with peanuts or fermented black bean that may be added, and one of our favourite native seasonings, Tasmanian pepperberry, for a hum of fruity, sweet heat you didn’t know chilli oil was missing. The ginger, garlic and eschalot crisp and caramelise into little golden shards that gently shatter in every mouthful. It’s all at once hot, sweet and umami — everything we want in a crispy chilli oil.
While Native Australian ingredients were once hard to find on your regular market run, that’s changing fast. Tasmanian pepperberry has found a cosy spot on grocery shelves, and is available through a growing community of native food specialists, eager to help you fill your pantry with these magnificent ingredients. And we encourage you to do so — fill your pantry up — your cooking (and palette!) will very much thank you for it.
MACADAMIA & GINGER CHILLI CRISP
Place 300ml neutral oil (we used rice bran oil) with 1 thinly sliced eschalot, 2 thinly sliced cloves of garlic and a 5cm piece of ginger cut into small batons, in a medium saucepan set over medium heat. Bring to the boil. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes or until the aromats are light golden brown and crispy. Carefully pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve set over a heatproof bowl or jug, reserving the hot oil. Set the crispy aromats aside.
Slowly pour the reserved hot oil back into the pan. Set pan over low heat. Gently add 80g chopped raw macadamias, 30g white sesame seeds, 2 tbsp dried red chilli flakes and 1/2 tsp ground Tasmanian pepperberry. Bring to a gentle boil. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes or until the macadamias turn a light golden brown. Remove from heat.
Allow the hot mixture to cool slightly, stirring gently to help it along. Once it has cooled slightly, slowly stream in 2 tbsp maple syrup while stirring continuously —take care as the mixture will bubble and steam. Add 3 tsp salt flakes and stir the crispy aromats back in.
Cool your chilli oil completely before pouring it into a large sterilised jar.
Serve on everything!
MORE RECIPES WITH NATIVES…
We pay respects to the Traditional Owners of the Gadigal and Guringai lands where we create and capture these recipes.