Last Thursday we teamed up with Aunty Dale Chapman from My Dilly Bag to film short videos for Gateway Education. Using six “hero” native ingredients Aunty Dale spoke about traditional uses and shared some of her endless knowledge while Three Little Birds cooked recipes using each one as the focus.

Cooking delish native dishes from paperbark smoked kangaroo with mountain pepper & seaweed to lemon myrtle biscuits with ooray jam and anise myrtle meringue.

We were lucky enough to use the kitchen at Redbank Plains State High School which is home to Platters on Willow run by Kara Pulou. Platters on Willow is a unique school-based enterprise providing catering services using school-based apprentices and showcasing Australian native and indigenous-inspired foods.
The food prepared by their students is a ‘message stick’ to communicate to the wider community their skills.

“We teach our students about growing and preparing indigenous flavours and how to use these in food preparation, presentation and service. Many of our students have rich cultural heritages and we are hoping to teach them a love of unique ingredients and hospitality, and give them an employment edge into the future.”

What a unique approach to hands on education! We had such a blast filming with the girls, love the concept and would happily work with them in the future!

We used some of our products available at My Dilly Bag. If you haven’t already had a look at new site, pop on over!

Looking forward to filming our next workshops soon!

 

To celebrate the launch of My Dilly Bag and our virtual online workshops we’re sharing our recipe for delicious fermented cabbage with three different myrtles. We’re currently in the process of filming our Native Sustainable Seafood and Fermentation Class.

Due to COVID-19 we’re unable to hold our events and pop-ups so we’ll be sharing our experience on our blog. Try out this recipe and improve your gut health while eating native Australian produce.

We’ve used fresh myrtle but you can find dried products online at www.mydillybag.com.au

Traditional Uses

Lemon Myrtle
Traditionally used for nutritional and healing benefits. Chewing the leaves provided a boost of vitamins and minerals while the antibacterial properties helped ward off infection. The leaves were also ground into a paste and applied to skin afflictions.

Tasmanian Mountain Pepper
The fresh berries would be crushed and mixed with water to make an effective antibacterial paste that would be applied to infected gums or teeth as well as rashes or skin abrasions. The bark was also boiled into a liquid tonic to aid digestion.

Myrtle Fermented Cabbage

Number of serves: 5 Prep Time: 10 mins Cooking Time: 5 mins

 

8g of rosemary salt and 400ml water (2% salt brine)

Lemon myrtle

Mountain pepper

Cinnamon Myrtle

Curry Myrtle

1/2 red cabbage

• Make brine by brining 8g of salt and 400ml water to the boil with aromas

• Cut cabbage into bite size chunks
• Move cabbage and brine to sterilised jars or vac seal into bags

• If jarring cover the cabbage completely with brine and cover with a cabbage leaf or weight to fully submerge

• Leave to ferment for at least 4 days at room temperature or up to two weeks for a stronger flavour at room temperature

 

So give this recipe a try, boost your immune system, improve digestion and enjoy!

Unfortunately this year’s Woodford Tree Planting Festival has been cancelled. But We thoroughly enjoyed cooking along side Aunty Dale Chapman and partnering with Sobah native non-alcoholic beverages over New Years 2019.

Woodford Folk Festival is held annually over six days and six nights, from Dec 27th through to January 1st. More than 2,000 local, national and international, artists, musicians and presenters put on over 438 acts to an audience of an estimated 132,000 people. The festival begins each year with the iconic Opening Ceremony and closes with the spectacular showcase, the Fire Event on New Year’s Day. This year will be the 35th Woodford Folk Festival and the 28th held at Woodfordia. It is the largest gathering of artists and musicians in Australia.

The Woodford festival experience is deep, rich and colourful. It is based on a vision of inclusive and creative community, culture and tradition passed through generations, expressed through story and ceremony. The site, a former barren dairy farm, has been lovingly regenerated with over 120,000 subtropical rain forest trees, orchids, ferns and sedges, planted to create a habitat for butterflies and wildlife.

Woodfordia is transformed into a village that hosts over 25,000 daily patrons, performers, stallholders, volunteers and organisers. As many as 2,680 volunteers across 162 departments are at the heart of the organisation and contribute to the setup and day-to-day running of the festival. During the event, the festival is actually the 67th largest town in Australia.

We cooked a native Australian feast, four courses for over 100 guests in the middle of the festival. We hoped to inspire our guests to cook with bush foods and love them just as much as we do!

Bush Food Menu 2019

Watch the Bush Food Feast Video shot by the talented Tessa Marianne Photography.

 

From October 2019 we started to test our food concepts every Friday night, Saturday lunch & dinner at the friendly warehouse of Wandering Cooks. It was such a great experience full of laughter, local produce and even a mention in Brisbane Times!

Wandering Cooks is the hub of the Brisbane food community, uniting artisan food producers, chefs, buyers, suppliers, educators and the food-loving public. Located on the corner of Cordelia St and Fish Lane Wandering Cooks provides a platform and incubation for small food businesses with a locally sourced outlook and all about sustainability.

“Starting Three Little Birds for Chris Jordan stems from his Indigenous ancestry. This ancestry was lost in his family due to social and political issues. Since immersing himself in his heritage, food has solidified his journey through story, sourcing and connection.

Chris has worked in kitchens since the age of 16 under Peter Kuravita at Flying Fish Restaurant in Sydney. Aunty Dale Chapman plays a huge role in Jordan’s passion and knowledge with native Australian ingredients that is always growing.

Typical flavours on the Three Little Birds menu are: earthy, smoky and unusual. Dishes such as Native Salt Baked Sweet Potato and Orange Myrtle Carrots both charred on Gidgee Coals, Mountain Pepper Spiced Brownie. You will enjoy Jordan’s food when you want something locally unique, plant based with a hint of optional fresh seafood.

VJ’s Seafood is proving to be one of Jordan’s favourite suppliers. “Neil’s passion and knowledge of native sustainable seafood is endless and always ensures we get a spectacular product!”

Chris Jordan’s dream for Three Little Birds is to create the projects flood my brain at night. Entire immersive experiences combing indigenous culture, dance, story telling, native ingredients and multimedia into events.”

Wandering Cooks – Three Little Birds, Small Batch Directory

With the help of Hillevi, Molly & Juila we were able to sucessfully launch on December 7th! Really couldn’t of done it with out them =)

What’s Cooking?

We kept a small menu to make the most of changing ingredients from small suppliers such as Falls Farm, along with native vegan dishes we also cooked sustainable native fish over coals.

 

Creating specials weekly with the freshest catch from their own boats, supplied by Neil and the team at VJ’s.

Coffin Bay Oysters with blue quandong & lemon aspen jelly, radish pearls

 

Charred Bundaberg Cuttlefish with Falls Farm heirloom squash & ink

 

We absolutely loved our time at Wandering Cooks but unfortunately due to health reasons we had to cut the pop up short finishing up in January this year.

We plan to operate from Wandering Cooks to bring you a native, sustainable & locally sourced product line and catering menu available in Brisbane and surrounding areas.

Catering Menu

Product List

We are also bringing our creative native food to pop ups and cooking classes to Brisbane, Gold Coast & Sunshine Coast this year. Teaming up with Aunty Dale Chapman we’ll be showcasing native ingredients, sustainable seafood, vegan cheese making and tips to get a taste of Three Little Birds at home.

Future pop ups planned for this year include working with Woodford Folk Festival, Blaklash and a very exciting series of “Forage, Fire, Feast” events set in beautiful bush land with performance by traditional owners.

 

Stay tuned for the next chapter with the birds!

 

 

Media Coverage

Brisbane Times – Feature Article

Brisbane Times – Ancient Superfood

Global Goddess Blog

On Monday we cooked a dinner for The Supper of Indigenous Tastes – Celebrating Slow Food Brisbane’s Terra Madre Japan and Slow Cheese Italy 2019 Attendee Experience & AGM.

On the menu was:

Myrtle & paperbark smoked chicken

Saltbush & seaweed kanagroo loin cooked in Fair Game Venison jus

Orange & myrtle carrots and ancient grains from Sovereign Foods

Macadamia, charred peach & green bean salad with homegrown & foraged herbs

 

Fair Game Venison who support struggling farmers, relieving environmental stress and feeding people premium quality, exceptionally healthy, ethically harvested wild venison, based on the north coast of NSW.

My Dilly Bag is run by mentor Aunty Dale Chapman, who creates an indigenous supply chain of native ingredients and who’s knowledge of bush foods is second to none. My Dilly Bag provide Three Little Birds with all our native produce.

Foraged or home grown ingredients: Along with native ingredients from Aunty Dale we use native and non native ingredients grown ourselves or found in the wild.

Sovereign Foods is a supplier of Australian grown pantry produce. We provide both wholesale and retail access to the finest range of organic and chemical free produce, including pulses, grains, flours, nuts, oils, vinegars, dried fruit and preserves.

Dale Chapman recapped on her 2019 Slow Food Terra Madre presentation in Japan titled: Indigenous Peoples Food System’s and Climate Change and Wendy Downes shared how her current knowledge about Cheese around the globe and recounted her experience at Slow Cheese in Bra Italy 2019.

It was lovely to meet such a friendly and locally sourced minded people and sit down to chat about our story and passion for native ingredients.

For more information on Slow Food Brisbane check out www.slowfoodbrisbane.com.au/