Paoer Chef #9 Mains

Glazed lemon gum scented mesquite smoked chicken, broccolini, and caramelised taro served with a spicy quandong inspired coulis.

The bulk of the ingredients are West Australian. The canned peaches come from Victoria as the local peaches are not in season. The local park provides the lemon scented gum leaves. The taro, mandarine peel and dried chilli come from the home garden. The aroma of the chicken comes from a combination of spent tea leaves and coffee grounds, Australian mesquite chips, mandarine peel, ginger peel, lemon myrtle, camomile and lemon scented gum leaves. The flowers for the dish include camomile, broccolini (broccoli flowers), and red gum flowers used by bees to produce "Wescobee" red gum honey for glazing.

The biggest effort in this dish goes into making a spicy, reddish, quandong (Australian native peach) inspired coulis through the use of rhubarb, canned peaches and ginger to reproduce the quandong taste.



Smoking the Chicken

Cook your favourite stuffed chicken to rare before smoking. Add 1/2 cup of mesquite smoking chips, followed by 1 cup of spent tea leaves and 2 tablespoon of spent coffee grounds to a wok. Heat until smoking before placing the chicken on a rack over the smoking mixture. Cover tightly and smoke for about 45 minutes at 130-140 degrees celsius. The chicken should look golden brown.



Towards the end of smoking when the chicken reaches about 70 deg Celsius, add the contents of two lemon myrtle and camomile teabags, 2 tablespoon of fresh ginger peel, 1 dried shredded mandarine peel, and 20 lemon scented gum leaves to the smoking mixture. Smoke for another 10-15 minutes until cooked. Turn off the heat and rest for 10-15 minutes. Glaze with warmed red gum honey. The resulting aroma should be that of BBQ meat with strong fresh lemon related aroma. The mandarine peel gives a more mellow aroma, and perhaps should be omitted or reduced.



Quandong Inspired Coulis

Boil 1 cup of chopped drained canned peaches, 1/2 cup of peach juice from the canned peaches, 2 dried chillies and 2 slices of ginger for 10 mins until the peaches becomes thick and pulpy. Add more juice as required. Use medium heat to prevent burning. Next add 1 cup of chopped rhubarb and cook for a further 5-10 mins. Adjust sweetness with honey and season to taste. Remove from the heat and rub through a sieve. Makes about 1 cup of very thick coulis which can be diluted with more peach juice as required.



The following are related articles for Paper Chef #9:

Paper Chef #9 Menu
Paper Chef #9 Ingredients
Paper Chef #9 Entree
Paper Chef #9 Mains
Paper Chef #9 Dessert
Paper Chef #9 Coffee
Australian Tea
West Australian Suppliers
Food in the Backyard