Original subtitles

BOAT HORN TOOTS

I was 19 years old when I first came to Australia.

I was at a crossroads, running away from family tragedy.

My dad had just died,

and I didn't know what I was going to do with my life.

And I found this sort of land of colour, of light.

Every day seemed like today.

And I can remember saying, "This is me. I've escaped.

"This is my life."

What I found in Australia inspired me,

and I've since built a career travelling

the world in search of perfect, simple dishes.

Love them to bits.

Today, Australia is so much more than just another travel destination.

My wife is Australian.

This is delicious, no calories?

And this country has become my second home.

This is the life, isn't it?

So after a lifetime of food journeys,

I'm finally retracing some of that first trip.

Ow!

I want to discover how Australia and its food is changing...

This goat curry is really special.

It takes me right back.

Fabulous!

I'd shake your hand, but I've got pie and sauce all over it.

Now I'm ready to go.

..and I'm bringing my inspiration

home to create new recipes.

That's looking good now.

I suspect it's going to be another journey of a lifetime.

Like many newcomers,

my first view of Australia was Sydney Harbour -

one of the largest natural harbours in the world.

It's also the gateway to Australia's oldest city.

Sydney is where my first

Australian adventure began in 1966,

and it's where I'll be spending

the first leg of my nearly

5,000 kilometre road trip across

the state of New South Wales -

an area three times the size

of the United Kingdom.

For me, there's no better way to experience Sydney than on

one of the many ferries that crisscross the harbour.

It was here that Sydney was founded as a British convict settlement on

the lands of the Gadigal people at a place now known as The Rocks,

between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

I remember when I came here,

the Opera House was just being finished.

The form was there so I could see how beautiful it was.

They were just putting the tiles everywhere.

I can remember then

the food was simple and familiar, really.

But what I also remember, even then,

was the produce was spectacular.

First time I ever had oysters and they were wonderful.

And also the first time, actually, I'd ever had scallops.

I suppose looking back, I realise how much my love,

appreciation and actually, knowledge of food

has changed over those years.

And I think it all kicked off with my early visit here.

And I think the same applies to Australia, really.

And I'm really here to find out

sort of how it's changed and also WHY it's changed.

I'm taking the ferry east past the city to one of

Sydney's many harbourside suburbs - Double Bay.

I'm here to meet someone whom I believe led

the charge in transforming Australian food,

to get his take on what drove this change.

Neil Perry emerged as a superstar

of modern Australian cooking in the 1980s,

championing quality produce and Asian flavours.

A few years ago, Neil opened a new restaurant -

Margaret - which he describes as a cosy neighbourhood bistro.

Pretty humble for a restaurant

that's just been voted one of the best in the world.

Good.

Mr Stein, how are you?

Well, more important - how's your fish?

- My fish is awesome. - Gosh!

Mate, if we get this inside, I'll pull it out and show you.

It's going to be incredible.

I'm here ahead of the diners

to see how Neil's approaching food these days.

- Such a nice restaurant. - Thank you, mate.

True, true family restaurant named after Mum.

And it seems the menu here is still dedicated

to serving up top grade produce cooked over an open fire.

Smells good. Is that charcoal or...?

Yeah, it's timber burning.

- Oh, wood. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the ironbark, we burn it right down to the embers

and we cook over the embers every day.

And so that starting fire is just fed for the entire day.

It'll run from now right through to this evening.

And it's the heart of the kitchen.

Oh, this is fab.

So here we are.

Here in his prep room,

Neil's chefs process a thousand kilos of top grade seafood

every week from across the country.

There you've got the beautiful coral trout.

This is the cousin of pearl perch.

So it's the Western Australian pearl perch.

I mean, that's just the most beautiful fish.

And so there you've got two examples of something

from one side of the country and one from the other, up north.

And then, you know, we'll get a delivery...

I'm speechless, Neil. That is a lovely fish.

What do you think is so special about Australian cuisine, really?

What makes it different?

Well, I think it's our relationship with Asia.

I mean, you know, we're part of Asia, really.

And the Chinese came here first.

Gold rush days, came in the 1800s.

And that was our first real exotic experience with Asian food.

Neil's cooking has always reflected these influences,

from the moment he opened his first restaurant,

the Bluewater Grill.

Because you sort of know Chinese food backwards.

Yeah, well, I do because I started with

that one first when I was very young,

with my dad taking me down to Chinatown.

We had Chinese friends who were restaurateurs.

So I got to eat amazing Chinese food when I was younger.

I was kind of eating, you know, chilli mud crab

- and ginger and shallot lobster and chicken. - Oh, my gosh!

And so that informed the Bluewater Grill.

Because I came here in '86. The Bluewater Grill was open.

And I just thought, "This is cutting edge.

- "This is where it's all happening." - Yeah, yeah.

I suppose that's the thing I really like about

you is you're just still so enthusiastic about your produce.

Yeah, well, it's the whole

basis upon which my career has been built,

and I don't see any reason to change it.

We just try to take the best things and get out of the way of it.

Neil has kindly offered

to show me his favourite way of cooking this lovely fish.

- Yeah. - Here's one of those beautiful coral trout.

- Yes. - And all I'm going do is give it a nice dusting of oil.

- Yeah. - We don't want it to stick to the grill,

but we don't want to, by the same time,

- we don't want to... - Flares up.

Yeah. It'll really take as much salt

as it needs so you can give it a really good seasoning.

I always say the difference between

a professional chef and a home chef is seasoning.

And then I'm just going to take this weight...

- Ah! - Just gives a little

- bit of pressure to get the skin a little bit crisp. - Yeah.

It's the age-old way of cooking over fire and charcoal.

- Exactly the way I do it as well. - Yeah, yeah.

But you know, one of the nice things about cooking

over fire with meat or fish

is it's just a very supportive flavour.

Well, it doesn't matter what you do to that.

- Yeah. - You can't make it any better than that.

- No. - No, no. No.

Everything else is just embellishing or gilding the lily.

Exactly.

The freshest piece of fish, beautiful, fresh lemon.

Yeah.

Beautiful mineral salt.

And of course, then you don't

get anything more pure than olive oil.

Wow!

Such a good fish as well, isn't it?

This coral trout is almost without peer.

You know, you get that slight crustacean flavour.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - The density of the flesh.

- Perfectly cooked, I have to say. - Oh, thank you.

Oh, that's good!

Neil's enthusiasm for the importance

of Asian flavours to Australian food intrigues me.

So I'm heading back into the city to explore Sydney's Chinatown.

It's the largest Chinatown in the southern hemisphere.

When I arrived here in the 1960s,

one in 500 Australians had Chinese ancestry.

Today, that figure is one in 20.

And you can feel it.

This is one of the most vibrant Chinatowns I've ever visited.

Writer Jennifer Wong knows a lot about it.

- Jennifer, it's nice to see you. - Hello!

Welcome to Sydney's Chinatown.

I've just been wandering around. It's enormous!

How long have the Chinese been here in Sydney?

1818. We can kind of put, like, a date on it.

And then people came

- for the gold rush in the 1850s and 1860s. - Yeah.

People are coming by boat.

Three months from Canton to Hong Kong to Sydney.

- Three months' trip? - Three months.

So where they would land was, of course, The Rocks.

And there's a saying

that the first Chinatown goes from The Rocks, the feet of the dragon.

Dixon Street is the belly of the dragon.

All of this food.

But there are suburbs

that could legitimately be called their own Chinatowns.

- Yeah. - You've got your Eastwood, your Burwood,

your Chatswood, your Hurstville.

These are all places with large Chinese populations.

You could walk down the street and imagine

that you might be somewhere in the middle of Asia.

Feeling blue, Rick?

Jennifer's taking me on a tour of her favourite places...

So these are all our local Asian-Australian artists,

and they all have a connection with Chinatown.

..including one of the oldest grocery stores in Chinatown.

- Zou san. - Zou san, Jen. Rick, nice see you. - Nice to meet you, Chris.

Well, Chris Lam was a banker

before taking over the family business.

This is my roots, Rick. I grew up in the shop.

Mum and Dad have lovingly curated this shop

and run this shop every day for four decades,

and I wanted to honour that.

I'm well impressed with that, actually.

So how have things changed?

The shop itself hasn't changed a lot since the '80s.

Doesn't look like it, which I love. Don't get me wrong.

And I'm trying to preserve it.

I'm trying to keep it that way.

- The smell, it's almost... - The smells. - Five-spice, you know?

The five-spice, salted fish.

You know, greens. We carry a lot of specialised Asian ingredients.

This is an amaranth green. It comes in two variations.

You can get this green or you have a red amaranth.

Oh, yeah, I've seen it. Yeah. And would that be

- stir fried, I guess, or...? - Stir fried with a bit of garlic.

You can steam it, put it in soups.

Chrysanthemum, a product of Korea, originally.

- Right. - And it's used in hotpot. Have a taste of that.

I love it. But the first time I would have tasted that,

I'd have thought, "That's poisonous," because it's got this

really sort of, like, tastes like a flower.

It's a weed, yeah.

- Well, aren't these all weeds? - Yeah. Well, I suppose so.

People come from all over.

And we're known for the quality of our greens.

We source it directly from the farmers

that have been growing this for multiple generations.

Chris's roots here run deep -

something he's clearly very proud of.

So, Rick, I wanted to show you this mural done by Aboriginal Chinese

artist Jason Wing and Aboriginal artist Maddie Gibbs.

The serpent is symbolic of the Aboriginal dreamtime.

The dragon symbolises East Asian immigration to Australia.

And to me, what it says is

that the Gadigal

land welcomed our people when we didn't have a home.

And for me, it reflects what it means to be

Chinese-Australian or Asian-Australian.

It is a love letter to Chinatown, from us,

- from the artist, and from the community. - Yeah.

- Well, Rick... - Yes?

..it would be remiss of me

- as a Cantonese person... - Right. - ..not to take you to Yum Cha.

- Yum Cha. I love Yum Cha. - You love Yum Cha?

- Yeah, yeah. - You know it means, "drink tea"?

Are you ready to drink some tea with me?

I'm more than ready. Yes.

Prefer it to beer, actually.

Did you really just say that?

- Yes, I did, I did! - I heard it here first!

Yum Cha is a classic South Chinese brunch,

in which an array of small share plates are served along with tea.

Here at the Royal Palace Seafood Restaurant,

trolleys piled high with dumplings

and other delicacies offer their wares to a packed crowd.

Yum Cha may have started as a Cantonese tradition,

but it's become a popular Sydney institution.

A few things you need to know before we start -

we need a game plan.

Because you look like the way you do,

they're going to look at you and think that all you want to eat

is a deep fried spring roll, and they're going to want

to put their steamer baskets on this table.

- Right. - And they want us to say, "Yes, we want it."

But Yum Cha is about learning to say no.

I get what you're saying.

- Yeah, right?! - Yeah, yeah.

Because I'll order everything.

You want to avoid a situation

where you end up with seven plates of fried food.

- Yeah. No. - Today we want to have a combination of fried, pan-fried,

deep-fried, but also steamed.

What are your favourites when you go to Yum Cha?

- Dumplings, really. - OK. Like a steamed kind of situation?

Steamed, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, these look good, Rick. Look at that.

- They do. - A little crab roe on top.

Is that what you had in mind when you think of Yum Cha?

- Yeah, yeah. - Classic two dishes of Yum Cha.

We literally say them all together.

Prawn dumpling, pork dumpling. Har gow, shumai.

So already we have...

We have ticked the box of a very basic Yum Cha fundamental.

Right. What about some tea?

We're going to combine a Chrysanthemum flower tea with

a puerh, which is like a kind of dark tea.

It's a blend I've never tried before.

- That's really nice. - Do you like it? - Yeah.

- So, go for it. Be my guest. - Good.

After talking about Asian food all morning,

I finally get to eat some, and it's been worth the wait.

How is that? Good?

Thank you so much.

Oh, that looks really nice.

Another Yum Cha staple.

Chinese greens with oyster sauce.

Simple and delicious.

Try that on for size.

This is taro on the outside.

Now taro is like a root vegetable that's extremely stodgy.

Even more so than a potato.

A taro dumpling filled with ground pork, and fried.

This is a sa leong, and this one is one of my favourite dishes.

- Great. - Inside here is the fried dough stick

that you'd know from having congee, right?

- Yeah, yeah. - Try it. Just try it while it's hot.

It's got the fried dough stick in the middle.

It's so good. I love that...

Well, the textures.

I mean, that's the whole point, isn't it?

- I know, I know! - Also, I love the fried taste.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That's what I love about Chinese food,

it's just making something out of the humblest bits.

And what could be more humble than chicken feet?

And then you eat it closer to your mouth, then?

You can bring the bowl up to your mouth as well in Cantonese.

Yeah.

So this is a really good one to eat while it's piping hot.

It's delicious.

Boiled with a range of spices, including

star anise and fermented black beans.

What's that saying about the only thing we don't eat

are the legs off the table or something?

- Do you know what I mean? - Yeah, yeah!

One more cup of tea for the road.

What have you thought about today?

I've so enjoyed it, really.

It's always about the sort of the theatre of it,

the enjoyment of it, the conviviality of it.

And you've got this really large restaurant full of

all races under the sun, almost.

And everybody's having fun because the whole,

the whole service is so, so enjoyable.

And I think, just asking myself the question,

"Is this what makes Australian food so special?"

Yes, indeed it is.

Because I just think that the general

assimilation of something like Cantonese cooking

and Yum Cha into the sort of

national identity is what is so special about Australia.

I'm taking my exploration

of Asian food in Sydney a step further,

and heading deeper into

the city's historic streets and alleyways.

I want to know if Australians are simply embracing Chinese food

or going further and making it their own.

And I'm meeting a chef

who I've heard is daring to do just that.

Dan Hong grew up in his family's Vietnamese

restaurant in Sydney.

He's now taking much-loved Cantonese dishes

and serving them up with his own twist

in his fine dining restaurant - Mr Wong.

- Hey, Rick. - Dan, very nice to meet you. - You, too.

- Welcome to Mr Wong. - Oh, my gosh.

It's really atmospheric.

We opened 12 years ago and we wanted to replicate almost

- like 1940s or '50s Shanghai. - Great.

- Yeah. - Sort of Empire Of The Sun type stuff?

Yeah. We wanted a great experience where the service was good.

- We had a really good wine list. - Yeah.

We had really good desserts

and we wanted to use the best produce in Australia.

So I've just got to ask you this, because it is a bit pricey.

I mean, you could get sort of

similar Cantonese food in Chinatown for half the price.

You are right.

But I'm trying to normalise people paying,

you know, the same amounts

for Chinese food than they do, let's say for an Italian restaurant.

Our dim sum team,

these guys dedicate their lives to making dumplings.

- Yeah. - You'd pay the same amount

for three tortellinis made by an apprentice.

- Yeah, yeah. - You know? - You are preaching to

the converted because, you know,

I mean, Chinese food is so special.

Why shouldn't you pay the same money...

- Exactly! - ..as Italian or French?

And it seems Dan is elevating the Cantonese

classics from Peking duck to char siu.

Traditionally used for barbecued pork,

Dan's found a new use for this red barbecue glaze.

So this is my signature Glacier 51 char siu roasted toothfish.

I came up with this dish because toothfish

is such a rich fish. It's almost like the wagyu of the sea.

- And expensive. - Very expensive.

Over $100 a kilo.

- Really? - Yeah.

- This is the traditional char siu marinade. - Yeah.

So there's just six ingredients.

So in goes the fermented tofu

and with all the juice.

And then the hoisin sauce.

And this ground bean paste, as well.

This is somewhat sweet, as well.

And then just a little bit of the red food colouring.

- And that's very...quite traditional. - Yeah.

And...this is the rose wine.

Oh! It is heady stuff.

- Isn't it lovely? - Yeah.

And then just the sesame oil.

So it's very simple once you've got the ingredients.

Very simple. And then slowly whisk in all the ingredients together.

Smell that rose. And will that come out in the final dish?

I mean, it all will come out.

- This is quite a strong marinade. - Yeah.

That's why, after we marinade,

we actually wash the marinade off.

- OK, so here's the toothfish. This is... - Fabulous.

Can I have a look at the skin side?

- Just see what... - Yeah.

Wow!

What an absolutely beautiful fish!

Sustainably caught 4,000km off

the coast of Australia, deep in Antarctic waters.

All I'm doing is just cutting it into,

I'd say about 200 gram strips, like so.

And then I'll just take the skin off.

The skin is actually really delicious and gelatinous,

but the marinade has such a high sugar content, it tends to burn.

Once we marinade this, it needs to sit

for 48 hours to really let that marinade penetrate in.

So what we have here - this is the...finished after two days.

And you can feel it's a lot firmer.

It looks very lovely.

And then we just skewer it

and then we cook it over on the charcoal grill.

Put it on like so.

- And we just want to get some colour on both sides... - Yeah.

..before we finish it off in the oven.

- Oh, look at that. - Brilliant.

And then we're just going to finish it in the oven

for about two minutes.

Of course.

So basically, I'm just going to drizzle some honey over it.

- Just honey, that, is it? - Just honey. This is straight honey.

And that's just like char siu pork.

All right. My char siu toothfish. Let me serve you.

Oh, thank you very much, Dan.

- Fabulous. - It's firm, but soft at the same time.

Yeah. Yeah.

Erm...

It's exquisite.

There's a perfect balance of flavour and texture.

The clean succulence of the fish

offset by the sticky sweet char of the glaze.

That is just, you know...

- I mean, Australia is very lucky with this fish. - Yeah.

I think you could only do this in Australia

because it just happens to be from Australia.

Great. You know, while I was watching you,

I was thinking, "How can I get this to England?"

Because, you know, "How can I get this fish...?"

But it wouldn't be the same. It's Australian.

So what inspired you?

I mean, this obviously inspires you.

- I mean... - I'm inspired by everything that I eat, from the finest

Michelin star Chinese restaurants to,

you know, humble street food.

And then, even just in Australia, especially in Sydney,

just these new waves of migrants coming in.

It's not just Cantonese, it's Sichuan,

it's Hunan, it's Yunnan.

And that's what really inspires me and really excites me about Sydney.

Fabulous. That's enough talking.

Let's get back to this.

This is...sensational.

I could spend days exploring

the city and its many restaurants, but I must admit,

what first drew me to Sydney

wasn't its food, but its beaches.

On the edge of the Pacific Ocean,

Sydney boasts some of the most famous surf beaches in the world,

and I couldn't wait to experience them for myself.

Even then, in the '60s, Sydney's ocean beaches were crowded

with sun lovers, surfers and swimmers.

I loved it.

But as I've discovered,

there are also hundreds of more secluded beaches dotted

all over the city's 55 square kilometre harbourfront -

each with their own unique charm.

And I'm heading to one of these beaches right now

on what's known as Middle Harbour,

to visit an old friend who's painted

Sydney's coastal life to international acclaim.

He's actually one of Australia's most famous artists -

Ken Done.

I started getting a real appreciation of

Ken Done's work in the '80s,

when he was doing all those iconic paintings of

the Harbour Bridge and the beaches and the sun and the colour.

It just said everything to me about Sydney and Australia.

Ken's lived and painted here for more than 50 years.

- Morning. - Heya, mate! Nice to see you again.

Very nice to see you. I've never been here before.

- It's fabulous. - It's a unique part of Sydney Harbour.

It's called The Cabin.

And it's the source of

a lot of the early paintings

came from the feeling of being here,

or the feeling of looking at the sea

and looking at the yachts, in all kinds of weather.

So you've lived here for 60 years.

Have you seen lots of changes in Sydney generally over that time?

The buildings are taller.

The city is more compact.

I'm feeling older, but it's still a great place to live.

Well, I couldn't agree more. I mean, for me...

I mean, I came here in the late '60s and,

compared with sort of grey, grey England,

this was just... Well, it was just like how you paint.

I just love going into artists' studios.

It's just so interesting.

And that's what you're working on now?

That's the painting I'm working on at the moment.

It's another reef painting,

not so much what it literally looks like,

but what it feels like.

And, you know, it's an opportunity to just show beautiful colours.

Yeah.

Like, I'm not as good as a five-year-old.

Five year olds are unbeatable.

Do you know what? I'll just tell you this.

I was filming with a guy in Cornwall, an artist.

And I said to him,

"You know, people might say a five-year-old could do that."

And he said, "Exactly.

"That's what I'm trying to get back to."

It's true. I'm better than most eight-year-olds.

But five-year-olds are unbeatable.

In the '80s, you were so big time because you had all those,

you know, iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge beach pictures.

- But then they were giving you a hard time for being too commercial. - Yeah.

Well, I think, unless you have an independent

income as an artist, you need to make money.

I've made 12 T-shirts with a drawing of Sydney Harbour on them.

People liked them very much. Vogue liked them very much.

That led to other things.

But I didn't ever see them as selling out.

I always saw it as selling in.

I promised Ken I'd make him lunch while I'm here,

with a dish inspired by another colourful coastal location.

Got the recipe from the Yucatan in Mexico,

with two fishermen just

doing it on board their little fishing boat.

And it's a cervice of kingfish and cooked prawns.

So first of all, the kingfish.

Just going to cut it into...chunks, I suppose,

is the right word, chunks - like that.

If you can't get kingfish

you can use tuna or salmon.

So there's my kingfish all ready to go.

And now I've got some prawns.

Actually, in the original recipe, they didn't do the prawns,

but I'm putting prawns in as well just

to make it a bit more interesting.

Just a bit of seasoning on there.

And now for the all-important lime juice.

And this is what actually cooks the fish.

It's amazing the way that the lime, the citrus,

does actually turn the fish

translucent with the cooking process.

And now for the other ingredients.

First an eshallot, which in the UK we call a shallot.

I think just half an eshallot will be perfectly satisfactory.

Put that on top like that.

And now chillies.

And originally the recipe was

for habanero chillies,

but they are quite hot.

Even if you take the seeds out,

they're still pretty hot.

So this is a jalapeno chilli.

I would say they're sort of

medium heat on

what they call the Scoville scale,

which is the way you measure

the hotness of chillies,

and habaneros are number ten.

Jalapenos would be about six.

And now...some nice tomatoes,

again just chopped.

I mean, what I like about this dish, it's very sort of impromptu.

It's almost like sort of preparing for a picnic, really.

I just think the whole joy of this dish is

the sort of ruggedness of it, really.

Now avocado.

And again, this wasn't in the original recipe,

but I just thought it

would make for a lovely addition.

So chop those up into, erm, chunks.

The last ingredient is coriander.

You can chop it, but I'm just going to tear it up.

So that looks pretty nice.

I mean, you'll note

that the fish still looks a bit raw,

but seriously, that's how I like it.

When you taste it,

it doesn't taste raw,

but if you leave it too long,

it'll go overcooked.

And it's much better like this.

- Yeah, it looks fabulous. - I hope so. - Wow.

- Such a nice fresh taste, isn't it? - Isn't it? It is.

This fish is fabulous.

I have to say...

.., this is the life, isn't it?

It's can't be bad, can it? That's right.

Sydney is a city defined by its waterways.

And I'm making my way over another part of the harbour

across the Anzac Bridge.

I'm heading to Sydney's western suburbs

for the Sydney markets in Homebush West.

It's just 15kms from the centre of the city.

And I would call it the stomach of Sydney.

This is the largest fruit and vegetable market in the country.

On Fridays and weekends,

its retail arm is open to the public,

and I can't think of a better

place to see how Australian food is changing.

I can see there's lots more variety of vegetables here than

you'd probably get in a normal supermarket.

There's about 1,500 stalls here,

selling almost every kind

of fresh produce you can imagine,

including some I've never seen before.

Excuse me. What are these?

Longans.

It turns out longans are similar to lychees.

Just one of the many tropical fruit on this stall.

Caulinis.

I haven't seen caulinis before,

but they look like a sort of a bit of a riff on cauliflowers.

Fabulous, fabulous.

And it's not just the variety.

Everything here looks bigger and brighter.

I mean, look at those peppers there.

Doesn't that make you want to eat them?

You just don't get passion fruit like that back home.

Just look at those chestnuts there.

I mean, you know, I've never seen chestnuts as big as that in Europe.

Somebody's immediately going to say,

"Well, you haven't been to northern Spain then, have you?"

This market has been influencing Australian tastes for generations.

And in the time I've been visiting Australia,

it's grown enormously.

Already in the '60s and '70s,

the market and its produce was being shaped

by people from different culinary backgrounds -

from Chinese market gardeners

to post-war migrants from Italy and Greece.

Their enthusiasm for their favourite staples

was transforming the Australian palate.

Today, these families, with a long history here,

are still well represented.

- Hi. Good morning. How are you? - Very, very well.

Very nice to meet you.

How long have you been selling in this lovely market?

Well, my father-in-law started the business in 1940.

- 1940? - 1940.

- So we've been... - So you've been... You've been...

A long, long time.

Eileen Yip is the fourth generation of

a family of Cantonese-Australian market traders

who specialise in onions, garlic and potatoes.

Born in Sydney, she's been running the family

business for over 20 years.

What changes have you seen in the market then?

The face of the Australian person has now changed.

So you see a variety of fruit

and interesting vegetables

that you wouldn't have seen before.

I've noticed. Yeah, absolutely.

We have about, erm...

- Oh, it could be about 36 varieties of potatoes. - Great!

Eileen tells me her potatoes cater

for Sydneysiders from all different backgrounds.

I mean, I'm very interested in this one.

Yeah, well, this is a great Peruvian one.

- Yeah. - See the two-tone of the colours?

- Yeah. - It's a great hit with people from Peru.

They can't get enough of it.

At the moment this is all that we have left.

Sometimes, they will buy cartons of it.

It's not cheap. $7 a kilo.

So where would they be grown these days?

Tasmania.

What is that? Is that a big royal blue or is that another...?

- No, this is purple bliss. - Purple bliss.

Sometimes it comes purple congo.

It's another in-demand

South American potato now grown in Australia.

It would seem there's a taste of home here for almost everyone.

I'd just like to try your best flavoured apple here.

The best flavoured apple at the moment is the Fuji.

This apple is nice and crunchy and it doesn't oxidise.

It won't go brown after you cut it.

That's Australia for you.

Developing something that doesn't oxidise.

- Yeah. - I mean, that's delicious.

How long have you had this stall for?

Well, come August this year,

it's going to be 44 years I've done this.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in Sydney, but my background is Italian.

Oh, well, there we go.

And I've had my grandfather,

my father, doing this business,

and then I've taken over, and I just loved it.

That's so interesting,

because I think, really, the sort of immigrant communities

over the years have made

so much difference to Australian food.

Oh, they have. They have.

It's sort of brought ideas and brought quality as well.

We had the cactus pear, you know, the...

Absolutely. In Calabria, you'd have had the cactus...

In Calabria, you had it. It was grown prolifically everywhere.

- Here it was a noxious weed. - Yeah. - Now it's a delicacy.

- Yeah. - Which is unbelievable!

So now, almost obviously, I'm keen to see

what the new communities are cooking.

And also, can they cook in the same way

as they cook back at home?

Since I first visited in 1966,

Sydney has more than doubled in size,

growing from a city of just over 2 million

to more than 5 million people.

And many live here in western Sydney.

About half the people here were born overseas,

and more than a third

speak a language, other than English, at home.

I'm curious to see how this multiculturalism

is shaping the culinary landscape.

I've come to the conclusion, after visiting many cities,

that if you really want to know what's going on

with food in a city, you get out of the centre,

you get out of where all the sort of glitz

and glamorous restaurants are,

and you head for somewhere like here, the inner west.

I'm meeting a journalist called Nick Jordan.

He's created a digital guide to the more than 150 different cuisines

that you can find in Sydney,

and he suggested we meet at a small Australian-Filipino cafe called Tita.

- Nick. Hi. - Hiya, Rick.

- Nice to meet you. - Very nice to meet you.

I'm curious to get Nick's take on the city's next big food trend.

This is my idea of what the future is,

because this is.... It looks Filipino to everyone,

but it's also Australian and it represents

a lot of people's experience in Australia with Filipino ancestry.

Cafe owner Ken Rodrigueza moved to Sydney

with his mother nearly 20 years ago.

He's making us his signature dish

using traditional Filipino sausage called longganisa.

So we make our own longganisa in-house.

So it's just pork mince, brown sugar,

paprika, pepper and salt.

It's our version of an Australian breakfast roll.

Yeah.

Oh, beautiful. This is exactly what I was talking about.

It's part Australian. It's part Filipino.

It's a bacon and egg roll, but it's got Filipino sausage.

And this here looks like ketchup. You can see here.

- Yeah. - This is a... This is like, quite an interesting

Filipino sauce made with banana.

Banana ketchup was invented in the Philippines

during World War II

when tomatoes were scarce and imported food expensive,

but there were plenty of cheap bananas.

It's made with banana puree, sugar,

vinegar, and local spices.

Scrumptious. It's very moreish.

Mm. It's unique to here.

Like, I don't think anyone is serving this

in the Philippines in this same style.

I don't think it would be very common in many other countries.

I like that this is a Sydney food.

And it's cafes like this that Nick

is bringing to people's attention in his digital guide.

Everything is divided by cuisine.

- Yeah. - And when I say cuisine, I don't mean just Thai, for instance.

- Yeah, yeah. - It's divided into southern Thai,

northern Thai, central Thai.

So we have a list of... There's more than 150 different cuisines on here.

You can see, look, this Chinese is, like, divided into

its many different regional specialities.

And if you click on any of these, say Fujian,

there's not many of these restaurants,

but it's one I particularly like.

And you zoom out and you can see - there you are.

These are the sort of Fujianese restaurants

in Sydney that are really valued by people from that region.

I must say, it must be such a fascinating job.

Why did you suddenly decide to go into food in such depth?

It was people, and wanting to hear a lot of different stories.

Food is just an easy way to get into that.

It so is.

- This is a very multicultural society... - Yeah.

..but people might not be engaging with it.

And I hope food is a very easy way

for people to experience another culture

and another cuisine and meet other people.

I think that's what's

so exciting about cooking in Sydney, really,

this sort of ease which people have of

ideas from other cuisines, really.

It's all moving.

Nick's sending me to a place that he says

has been instrumental in helping newcomers

from different backgrounds

take their first steps into the Sydney food scene.

It's a not-for-profit organisation called

FoodLab and it's run by Jamie Loveday.

- Rick. - Very nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

- Welcome to our kitchen. - Well, what a kitchen!

I didn't quite expect it to be so pristine and such nice equipment.

Well, we're very proud of that.

Well, I bet you are.

Gosh, sort of makes my kitchen look a bit sort of second rate, really.

We get told we're the cleanest kitchen in Sydney.

- Really? Really? - Very proud of that.

So FoodLab. Just tell me what it's all about.

We're a coworking commercial kitchen

for refugee migrant women and First Nations people.

- Wow. - And we also run a business training programme

to help people go from an informal business

to a formal, scalable food business in Sydney.

So really you're helping sort of

very small-time entrepreneurs to do things properly, I guess?

Yeah. Teach people the basics of safety,

- food regulations, tax law, finance, and all of that. - Yeah.

But I guess what's interesting

to me is that you're right at the sort of

cutting edge of what's coming into this country,

really, in terms of food.

And the cutting edge of talent, as well.

- Talent. - The entrepreneurs in our kitchen today are cooking,

I believe, some of the best food

that you can get in Sydney, in Australia.

I can see a few cooks beavering away here

and I'm keen to taste what they're making.

- Hi, how are you? - I'm very well. How are you?

- I'm good. - More to the point. What are you cooking?

- Biryani. Chicken biryani. - I love a biryani.

Yes. This is for my signature dish.

This biryani is can teach my, for my grandmother.

Great.

Nadia brought this recipe with her from Islamabad

when she moved here a few years ago.

- Smelling so nice. - Thank you.

Her cooking has been such a hit with her Pakistani friends

that she's starting her own catering business,

and FoodLab is providing her with the commercial kitchen she needs.

And this is for my homemade masala.

- Great. - Is that cinnamon? - Yes. Got a whole chunk.

I put my, this masala, is in layer by layer, so it's more flavoury

- and the smell is very good. - Ah-ha.

And now, finally, it's decoration time

and put in the stove.

How long? How long for?

- This one is in 15 minutes. - 15 minutes?

- Yes, 15. - Low heat. - Low heat. Yeah. - OK.

Ooh...!

Oh, that's lovely! Gosh, what a lovely aroma.

- Can I try some? - Yes, yes, of course. - Perfect.

Thank you very much.

That is so good.

- Quite hot. - Yeah. - I mean chilli hot.

But I'm loving that...

..cinnamon in there.

The chicken is so succulent.

- Thank you. - Perfectly cooked. Love it.

- Thank you. - Love it!

I'm returning to where I started -

the birthplace of this city on the harbour's edge.

I've been struck by the range

of influences born out of its history

that are finding their way onto

the main stage of Sydney's food scene.

Well, I must say, it's very nice

for me to be back at the Opera House

because I cooked here once on stage.

It was a very special occasion for me, I can tell you.

I'm here today to meet a First Nations chef

I've heard a lot about.

Mark Olive has spent more than 20 years

bringing native ingredients into the culinary spotlight.

- Rick, how are you? - Very, very well.

His flagship restaurant Midden now occupies prime position on

the site where Aboriginal people

traditionally gathered to meet and eat.

- Cheers. - Cheers.

Now, over a native plum margarita,

Mark is going to introduce me to some of his favourite herbs.

So what have we got here, then?

Ice plant,

samphire, cacala, lemon myrtle,

salt bush and water seed.

- Oh! - Cheers, Pete. - Thank you.

Got the lemon myrtle. Take a leaf.

Now what I want you to do is crush it, bruise it, rub it in your hand.

Warm that warm hand.

Get all of that oil coming out of that.

Yeah.

Now smell.

- Isn't that yummy? - Mm.

Mark uses its intense, citrussy, eucalypt flavour

to season many of the meat and fish dishes he serves.

- Now, have you heard of an ice plant? - No, I haven't.

Now look, this is really going to blow your mind.

- When you look at it... - It's got ice on it.

It feels like it's got, looks like it's got ice.

- Yeah. - Now just throw it in your mouth.

Just bung it in.

- Isn't that amazing? - So much moisture in it.

It's like a really nice,

- lemony sort of tart... - In the ocean.

But this is great with seafood.

Even beef, you know, with, like, a beef fillet.

It's really nice. You get that nice crunch,

but that saltiness really flavours that fillet, as well.

It's amazing what you can

do with these different flavours and the different textures.

Before we go any further...

Mark served me a local spanner crab tart with native herbs...

Delicious!

..that he sourced from all over Australia.

So how did you learn about all these ingredients?

I had to do a lot of research.

Understanding what foods were around here,

speaking to elders.

So it was a good ten years out there scratching around

and looking and trying different things.

Mark's research and determination has helped him gather

traditional food knowledge and elevate native ingredients

to their rightful place in the contemporary Australian pantry.

And his innovation continues with dessert -

a macadamia semifreddo served

with preserved pink lily pillies,

or ryeberries, as they're often called.

I love these ryeberries.

They're beautiful, aren't they?

They've got a nice crunch, the fresh ones do.

And a slightly astringent bit in the middle.

- Presumably, it's a seed. - It's the seed.

A lot of people

are growing this stuff in their backyard now,

which is, one, exciting, but two, it's just going

to make our food scene here much more richer.

It's really nice.

I mean, apart from anything, it looks so pretty, you know?

And that's part of the thing with a sweet, isn't it?

It's got to look great, but that tastes really lovely.

You know, it was always seen as bush tucker.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You just pull it straight out and you eat it.

That's what people's perception of eating kangaroo was like.

It sort of used to be a novelty.

And now you've made it something quite serious, which...

Good for you.

I really appreciate that, Rick. Thank you.

- Cheers. - Cheers, Rick.

And thanks for being here.

When I first arrived in Australia,

I was quite a sort of sheltered young person -

teenager - and a bit shy.

Australian life really sort of grew me up, in a way.

It gave me the confidence to try new things,

and I'm feeling that same kind of energy and excitement now.

So this is a nod to Chinatown,

and the dish I'm making is salt and pepper crab

with a side order of bok choy and oyster sauce.

So first of all, three chillies.

And what I'm doing here is just taking some

what I would call finger chillies

and slicing them reasonably thinly.

Right, so there's my chillies.

Next, some spring onions.

This time cut into sort of...

I don't know, 2cm, 3cm length. Something like that.

This is all for my stir-fry.

And now some shallots

which I'm just going to slice in this case.

Next some garlic.

Just slicing.

And lastly, some ginger.

I'm just going to...

So that's all my veg ready.

Now the other, and the most

important flavour element

in salt and pepper crab, is salt and pepper!

Just running round here we've got

MSG, five-spice, sugar,

Sichuan peppercorns, salt,

white peppercorns.

So I'm just going to tip this into a mini mortar and pestle.

But if you're using a spice

grinder, just turn it off

before everything is turned into

a powder.

So that's nice. It's got a little bit of texture there

though I could just pour that right over the veg.

So next phase - I've got here a couple of blue swimming crabs.

And I'll just show you how

to take the back off them.

If you're making the same dish

in the UK you'd use brown crabs,

but you don't have to feel

that you need

to use just crab to make this dish.

You can make it very easily also

with squid or calamari,

or indeed prawns.

OK, now there we go.

Now the only sort of bit that I would

need to take out of this are what we call the gills.

And that's these sort of

feathery things on either side.

What I'm pulling out now is the stomach.

That's just behind the eyes.

You don't want that.

It's full of grit and nastiness.

So the next thing I'm going

to do is break off the claws.

And that's where there's some lovely meat, by the way,

breaking off the claws...

..like that.

And now I'm also going to just take the mouth out there.

But the rest of it, I'm going to cut up.

So just cut the crab in half like that

and then just cut each half in half...

..and that's ready to go.

The great thing about blue swimmer

crabs is the shell is quite soft,

so it's quite easy to extract the meat from the shell.

And I just really like the whole

business of chewing on a crab leg

while I'm talking to people.

And now for the claws.

And they do need a bit of a crack...

Tap like that.

..because it makes it much easier

to get the meat out.

Note I'm just cracking every joint.

So now we're ready to go

and dip the crab pieces

in cornflour and then deep fry them.

I'm just checking the temperature.

And you do really need some sort of thermometer.

You can use a piece of bread just

dropped in and it comes up to the

surface frying very quickly

you know you're up to temperature.

Here, with a thermometer,

I'm on about 180 degrees,

which is fine.

It'll cook very quickly.

So now I'm just dredging the crab just in cornflour.

Now I find flour just doesn't really crisp up enough.

Cornflour does.

So I can start frying my crab now

as I do the rest of it.

So just dropping it in.

Just note that I haven't got a lot of oil in that.

And the reason for that is

that there's still quite

a lot of moisture in this crab.

If I put too much oil in, it would go over the side

and you'd be in all kinds of trouble.

I don't need to fry this very long,

simply because the crab's already cooked.

So all I'm really doing

is trying to crisp up the crab.

That's looking good now.

These can come out.

Now for a bit of stir frying.

First, some oil.

My hot wok.

And then all these.

The salt and pepper mixture...

..all in at once.

Stir and fry, stir and fry.

So that's pretty good.

Driven off some of the moisture.

But I like a bit of crispiness

in the stir-fry, as well.

So in now goes the crab.

Just a bit of stir and frying.

And then we're ready to serve that up.

And now for the bok choy.

Into my boiling water.

Two or three minutes only.

Just to... Always like a bit of crunchiness in my bok choy.

That looks very nice.

So now we've got some oyster sauce to go just over the top...

..like that.

Then some soy sauce.

Not too much. Teaspoon or so.

And finally,

a bit of roasted sesame oil.

I love this veg.

It goes so well with the crab.

Classic combination, I'd say.

I really like this Chinese dish, that it's crisp and that it's dry.

You can pick it up in your fingers

and that's a great way of eating crab like this.

Probably the only way.

Try it with a knife and a fork.

You'll see what I mean.

And you can bite on it.

And it's delicious.

You've got a lovely sort of back flavours of the five-spice,

the white peppercorns, the Sichuan pepper.

It's a perfect dish for me.

And then contrast...

..just the sort of

softness and wetness of this bok choy.

Great Chinese food is all about simplicity.

You can't get much simpler than that.

Just brings out the best in the crab.

And then this lovely, luscious bok choy to go with it.

I'm in heaven.

Next time, I'm heading north to the Central Coast

to see how the great

Australian outdoors is shaping how we live...

SHE SINGS

..play...

Now I'm ready to go.

..and eat.

I'm going to just sit here and cook my kangaroo and bacon.

It's bloody good chicken.

That's great. Very good with a beer.

Absolutely.