Recipes from First Nations Food Companion, by Damien Coulthard and Rebecca Sullivan

Welcome to a food-lover's guidebook to the first foods of this continent. Including an informative guide to more than 60 of the most accessible Indigenous ingredients, including their flavour profiles, along with tips for how to buy, grow and store them, alongside 100 delicious recipes.

Damien Coulthard is an Adnyamathanha and Dieri person of the Flinders Ranges, an international artist, cultural educator and high school teacher. His wife Rebecca Sullivan is a food educator, regenerative farmer, Yale World Fellow and TV presenter.

A sumptuous lasagne with mushrooms, ricotta and warrigal greens. You wouldn't even know it was 'roo, so it's a great starting point for those who haven't tried it yet. While making your own wattleseed-infused pasta is totally worth it, you can replace it with store-bought fresh lasagne sheets. Try the pasta with ground pepperberry or lemon myrtle instead of wattleseed for different flavour journeys.

Ingredients

Method

1. Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, for five minutes or until softened. Add mince - working in two batches if necessary - and cook, stirring, for 10 minutes or until browned all over. Add mushrooms, garlic, Vegemite and a splash of red wine, stir to combine, then add passata and simmer for five minutes. Stir in the thyme and basil, then remove from heat and allow to cool.

2. For white sauce, heat milk in a saucepan over medium heat until just simmering. Mix cornflour with two to three tablespoons of water to make a paste, then whisk it into milk and stir over medium heat until sauce has thickened and coats the back of the spoon. Add cheddar and stir until melted, then season with salt and ground pepperberry to taste.

3. For wattleseed pasta, mix flour, semolina and wattleseed in a bowl with your hands. Make a well in the centre, crack in eggs, then add a pinch of salt. Mix into a dough with a fork, then turn out onto a lightly floured bench and knead for up to five minutes until smooth. If it feels too dry, add a few drops of water as necessary; if it's too wet, add a little more flour. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for 30 minutes to rest. If you have a pasta machine, follow the instructions to make lasagne sheets, if not, use a rolling pin to roll into very thin sheets and cut into 30cm x 20cm strips. Blanch in boiling salted water for one to two minutes, then spread out on a clean tea towel to drain.

4. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease the base of a 30cm x 20cm baking dish with olive oil. Assemble the lasagne with a layer of wattleseed pasta, followed by a thin layer of meat mixture, white sauce, warrigal greens and ricotta. Continue alternating layers until all sauce and meat mixture is used. Finish with a layer of pasta and remaining ricotta. Top with grated cheddar and parmesan.

5. Bake for 30 minutes until cooked through and the cheese is melted and golden (if the top gets too brown, cover with foil). Allow to cool briefly before serving.

Serves 4.

Substitution options:

Minced kangaroo: minced beef, pork or lamb

Warrigal greens: baby spinach

Native thyme: thyme or oregano

Native basil: basil

Wattleseed: ground coffee

This is Aunty Daphne's recipe and it is the best. She suggests making it at least a day before eating, and you can change up the filling or topping flavour if you like.

Ingredients

1. Crush biscuits by blitzing in a food processor or smashing in a bag. Stir crushed biscuits with melted butter to combine, then press firmly into a 20cm square tin. Refrigerate until cold and set.

2. For quandong filling, place quandongs in a small saucepan over low heat, cover with water, and simmer for five minutes or until soft. In a heatproof bowl, stir gelatine into boiling water until dissolved. Add condensed milk and lemon juice, stir to combine, then spread onto biscuit base in tin. Spread stewed quandongs over the top and refrigerate until set.

3. For muntrie topping, place cranberry juice in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer, then whisk in gelatine until dissolved. Cool to room temperature. Scatter muntries onto stewed quandong in tin, then pour cranberry jelly mixture over the top. Refrigerate for four hours or until set.

4. Cut into rectangles and decorate with mint or basil to serve.

Serves 8.

Substitution options:

Quandongs: any stewed fruit

Muntries: Granny Smith apple

These ice pops recipes, one made with soda, one with yoghurt, recall super-hot summer days running under the garden hose in the backyard, ice pops dripping down onto the hot concrete, only to be quickly eaten by ants. The only difference here is that we've made ants a part of the ice pops! These are less sweet than those you may remember from your youth, and much more about the flavourings. We encourage you to play around with different additions to suit your tastes. You'll need popsicle moulds and four to six sticks - we like to use thoroughly cleaned (and safe) sticks from the garden.

Ingredients

Method

For soda water pops:

1. Pour 100ml fresh water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from heat, add honey and stir to dissolve. Add half the green ants (or whatever flavouring you're using; with these we also like desert limes, lilly pillies, quandongs, midyim berries, Tanami apples or muntries), return to the heat and simmer for five minutes, then remove from heat and leave to infuse for 30 minutes. (This can be done the day before and left in the fridge overnight to infuse.)

2. Pour through a sieve into a jug, squashing ants with the back of a spoon to squeeze out all the liquid. Add finger lime zest and pearls and stir well. Add enough soda water to bring the total volume up to 600ml.

3. Add your choice of ingredients to moulds, then pour in the liquid. Freeze for one to two hours, insert popsicle sticks, then allow to freeze overnight. Unmould and enjoy.

Note: for two different colours like in our soda pops in the photo, freeze half first, then pour in the second half once the first is set - this will take about two hours. We used only a little soda for the orange part, and mostly soda for the white part.

For yoghurt pops:

1. Add yoghurt and honey to a food processor and whiz to combine. Stir in green ants and basil (or whatever flavouring you're using; with these we also like rosella leaves, river mint or petals of native flowers).

2. Pour into popsicle moulds, pushing some ants and herbs to the edges of the moulds so you can see them when they're unmoulded. Place a popsicle stick into each mould, then freeze overnight. Unmould and enjoy with some honey.

Makes 4-6

Substitution options:

Green ants: citrus zest

Finger lime: lime zest and juice

Native basil: basil

Lilly pilly is one of those fruits that, when you know what it looks like, you start to see everywhere (there always seems to be at least one tree somewhere on the street). It works in both sweet and savoury dishes, but try to save some to make this delicious cordial.

Ingredients

Method

1. Combine lilly pillies, tartaric acid, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan, add 1 litre of water and bring to the boil. Boil for five minutes or until the fruit is just starting to soften. Remove from heat, mash fruit, then strain through a fine sieve. Pour into a sterilised bottle.

2. Use like any cordial - put a splash in a glass and add water and ice to taste, garnishing with extra lilly pillies and perhaps a lemon myrtle leaf.

Makes 1 litre.