Mark Olive’s Christmas recipe: emu eggnog and pan stuffing with native herbs | Life and style


Emu eggnog

200g caster sugar
1 large emu egg or 10 chicken eggs
1.5L full cream milk
Vanilla essence
375ml thickened cream
250ml brandy
Nutmeg

Cream 150g caster sugar and the egg yolk, slowly adding the sugar while whisking. Heat the milk over a water bath, adding creamed egg and sugar slowly as it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Chill for an hour in the fridge or sit over an ice bath to cool down. Add the vanilla essence. Beat the cream until it peaks, and set aside. Whisk the egg whites slowly, incorporating the remaining sugar until it peaks. Add the brandy. Fold in the egg whites and the whipped cream.

Served chilled or warm in a tall glass with grated nutmeg.

Pan stuffing with native herbs

100g of warrigal greens or silverbeet
1 loaf light rye bread
1g native thyme or thyme
2g native pepper or black pepper
2g salt bush or pink salt
3 sticks celery, diced
2 medium brown onions, diced
6 leaves of fresh sage, chopped
50g butter
10 whole eggs
2g sea parsley or parsley

Blanch off warrigal greens, rinse under cold water and squeeze out excess moisture. Set aside to dry while you prepare the rest of the mixture. De-crust the bread and cut into small diced pieces and place in a bowl. Add the remaining dry ingredients as well as the chopped warrigal greens and mix through the bread. (The greens may also be chopped and sprinkled on top at the end to give the stuffing a vibrant lift in colour.) Fry off the celery and onions and sage in the butter and stir until soft. Stir through bread mixture. Whisk the eggs and then combine through the stuffing mixture until moist. Add milk if it feels too dry – it should just come together and not be slushy.

Turn out into a baking tray and cook in preheated oven at 160C until firm and browned. Check after 20 minutes. Turn out and cut into appropriate slices.



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Mark Olive’s Australian Christmas lunch: bush turkey and emu eggnog – video | Food


Indigenous chef Mark Olive, aka The Black Olive, makes Christmas lunch with Australia’s native ingredients such as wattle seeds and warrigal greens, and eggnog using an emu egg. ‘Indigenous herbs are an exciting thing, we should be using more of them,’ he says in this special Guardian film. ‘Australia has an opportunity to invent its own cuisine. We have this amazing cuisine here that we don’t use. We’ve embraced every other culture in this country except what we’ve got in our own backyard … get out there, explore these flavours, smell them and try them’

• Follow the recipe here



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Ed the emu a tourist attraction, brooding on nest after partner dies


A pet male emu in WA’s south has continued to brood on an empty nest each year, despite his mate dying two years ago.

The tale of 26-year-old Ed has struck a chord with ABC Great Southern’s audiences, with thousands sharing an image of Ed brooding on the empty nest.

Ed belongs to Kojonup farmer Rino Guidi, who bought him and his mate together.

“We just let them go into the paddock … that’s where they lived,” Mr Guidi said.

Kojonup farmer Rino Guidi says he’s the only one who can “handle” Ed.(ABC Great Southern: Olivia Garnett)

Ed’s mate died two years ago, but each nesting season he continues to brood on the pair’s old nesting site.

“He’s been sitting down — he thinks he’s got eggs underneath him, but he ain’t,” Mr Guidi said.

Male emus perform the incubation of eggs, often without drinking, feeding, defecating or leaving the nest for weeks, according to the Australian Museum.

The male emu then raises the chicks for four to six months.

Ed has become something of a tourist attraction on Albany Highway, with tourists stopping for a photo.

“A lot of people ring me up or stop. A lot of people ask to go and have a look,” Mr Guidi said.

“I’m the only one who can handle him, only me. He chases others away.”



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