- I looked into this giant bowl of salad
and I said
"Oh, thank you."
(laughing)
I'm not even joking, this is real.
(hums)
- This is amazing.
- You're lying to me aren't you?
- No, no, no.
(laughing)
- I just want to eat.
(upbeat music)
- So I'm Will Cooper,
I'm Wiradjuri/Yorta Yorta.
- I'm Jinny-Jane Smith.
I am a proud Wiradjuri/Yuin Walbunja woman.
- I'm John Leha.
I'm a Birri Gubba/Wakka Wakka and Tongan man.
- I'm Jessica Johnson.
I'm a Wombaya/Warumungu woman.
- I'm Matty Mills,
and I'm a proud Kamilaroi man.
- My name's Kaiya.
I'm an Erub Islander woman,
from the Torres Straits.
Also from the Kuku Yalanji nation in Cannes.
On my father's side, I am Ghanaian West African.
- And today we're going to be doing
an Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander food swap.
- We've both cooked foods that we eat
in our community and our families.
Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander families
- I've selected a household staple
in many Island families.
A lot of Blackfella families as well
have their coconut curry chicken dish.
Sweet potato, pumpkin, regular potatoes.
I put a little bit of carrot,
and you prepare it
in your big traditional Island pot,
garlic, onion,
fry that up for a little bit with your curry
and you make a nice paste out of it.
Add your chicken breasts to it,
coconut milk, coconut cream,
and you bring it to a slight boil.
And then you add all of your lovely vegetables.
Then you bring it to serve.
- Isn't it funny though,
when we talk about these recipes
with our parents, they're like,
"Do not change it, do not touch it."
To my mum, I was like,
"I'm going to dice the carrots."
And she was like, "That's so embarrassing.
Don't dice the carrots, just chop the carrots."
- Yes, my mom was like that.
She was like, "Don't you make me shamed out there."
She's like,
"You know what Island people are going to be like."
(high pitched) "They didn't tell that woman how to cook!
What's wrong with her?"
- All right, bit of rice.
Mmm.
(laughing)
Mmmmmm. What sort of mmm do you want?
Mmmm, mmmmm.
No being real cheeky.
No, it's actually really good
because it takes me back
to aunties' cooking food.
Like I've had this meal before
and you've done it justice, for sure.
- Thank you.
- You sort of have a memory of that as a kid,
you know, like I know this curry all too well
and it's really good.
And I'm going to keep eating.
- Makes me feel like I'm an auntie-in-training
- Today, I've cooked Jessica some corn beef fritters
which is leftovers from the night before,
which is something that we would usually eat
nearly once a week in my family.
- Leftovers?
- That turned into fritters.
It should taste like last night's meal.
But compact.
- Because it was.
- Yeah. (laughing)
Normally these are the things that are leftover.
Carrots, veggies, cabbage,
corned beef, and white sauce.
And we turn them into a fritter.
- Mmmmmmm
(laughing)
Yum, yum, yum.
I can taste all the bits and pieces.
(laughing)
We shouldn't have been put together!
I think I probably would have liked
to have this meal yesterday though.
It's lovely.
It's really nice.
- Today, I've made a curried sausages dish,
which a lot of Mob will know
and have, I'm sure, memories of as a kid
eating this dish
but I've put a little bit of a twist to it
All you need are potato, carrots, and onions,
your trusty Keen's Curry powder,
sausages of your choice.
So whether it's pork or beef,
oil the sausages first
and then you add your vegetables.
Boil away for up to two hours.
I added some paprika, some cream.
I know that this is not traditional Blackfella food.
I wanted to sort of, take it to the next level.
- So I'm just going to dip it in.
Really got to get that curry on there first.
Mmm. Oh okay!
This is good.
- Do you generally eat sausage?
- No, not really.
- You know, I didn't take you for a sausage eater.
(laughing)
No. What I mean is like,
when I was cooking this dish
and I was thinking of you, I was like
I hope she just eats it.
Because I didn't think you would like sausages.
- This reminds me of like, maybe like a Wednesday
or a Thursday afternoon when I was like,
coming home from school.
That pot would always have this on the stove.
And you'd have it, for your afternoon school snack.
Solid 10 out of 10.
- 10?
Oh my gosh.
- This is right up there.
- Oh, I love that.
- So for Jinny-Jane I've cooked up
a bit of an old-school mince curry stew
with Johnny cakes,
which are essentially fried scones.
Good old Keen's Curry.
A lot of vegetables.
Have all the ingredients in a pot.
Let that cook for about 30, 40 minutes.
Johnny cakes are literally,
it's just flour, salt, and water kneaded.
And then roll it out, rolling pin.
Tuck it like, in a pot,
just with the flour itself.
No oil, no butter, no nothing.
Let it cook until ready to serve.
My Nan and Mum always cooked this dish.
It's delicious, it's comfort food.
And what I think of
when I think of Blackfella food.
I guess with the dish,
it's just something that I had to make sure
that I had this correct.
So I rang my Mum and my Nan up,
just to help guide me through today.
I wanted to-- I didn't want to make her shame
by getting this incorrect.
It's good?
- Mmm.
- It's really good.
Because I've had lots of Johnny cake in my time.
That's really good.
I've really do like that.
- Aww, thank you.
- And the Curry, this is amazing.
- You're lying to me.
- No, I'm not.
- That's amazing.
This makes me feel very happy.
It just means a lot like, you know
during COVID, wasn't able to see my family.
So for me, the food was a really great way of connecting
with my family when I couldn't go see them in person, so--
- Warm, comfort.
Traditional Blackfella curry
(laughing)
- That makes me proud. Ahh.
- It's a Nana's curry.
- Oh, a hundred percent, it is.
Yeah. Yep.
- What'd you make?
- I made John a Everything Salad.
It's got everything on it.
Nuts, seeds, hummus,
and anything else I can find
in the cupboard
and also vermicelli chicken.
So yeah, it's a big dish.
It's very popular around like,
you know, Northern parts of Australia.
It's Mob-y.
Some people do it with pork.
I'm not much of a cook.
I'm more of an assembler.
So like salads and cheese boards
and that sort of thing.
- We eat the same.
We call it Sapa Sui though.
But it's more like Tongan.
Yeah, but it's very much the same.
I'm not a big salad eater.
What's the white stuff?
- Goats cheese
- I don't eat salad.
I wouldn't make salad.
This is a flash salad, but you know what?
It tastes good.
I'd eat it again.
No.
(laughing)
Jess has made this lovely chicken vermicelli
which is what I'm very familiar with.
(giggling)
For someone that, ooh, that doesn't cook,
it's really good.
It's got more ginger than I would normally use.
And it's really sweet.
But otherwise, this is a good,
I would call it, chicken Sapa Sui.
But it's juicy.
It's not like dry.
It's really fragrant, aromatic.
Out of 10.
I would give this an eight.
- I'm pretty happy with that.
- I eat some salads, but not salad by itself.
Like come on.
Does anybody?
Oh yeah.
People eat salad by themselves.
(laughing and snorting)
- So my recipe is a bit of a mix
from a couple of women that have inspired my cooking.
I start off with a wet kind of base.
Tomato, onion, minced garlic, and coriander.
I put that in a pot with butter.
And then I add all my dry ingredients
which is, you know, the secret ingredients.
Curry is definitely in there.
Then I put the meat in that, and then like,
let that kind of like, just soak up.
Cutting up the onions, salt, lemon.
And squeezing all that in together.
And then like, leaving that in the fridge.
It's best served overnight.
Curry's always better the next day.
So hopefully Will enjoys it.
- All right, let's do this.
Should the salad, like the onion, be eaten same time?
- Same time.
- Okay, cool.
Mmmm.
It's beautiful, Jinny.
And the rice.
Well, excuse me.
I'm going to be a couple of minutes.
Again, this is for me,
this is the sort of food
that makes me think of my family.
It makes me pretty happy.
The onion.
- It's good, hey?
- It adds a nice crunch to it.
- Doesn't it?
That's why I cooked mine last night.
Cause I was like, mmm, I'm going to win this!
(laughing)
- Oh, someone's trying to win today.
- It's so interesting, I think.
About Curry and Blackfellas.
Like you think Curry, Indian mob, you know, like
but it's so different, you know?
- Yeah.
- I think some of the food that we've eaten today,
there's definitely similarities in different iterations
of that from North to South.
But this here, this salad, that's new.
- And I love, I love feeding mob as well.
Like I do enjoy cooking and I love seeing mob's
face when they do taste my food and be like,
"Ooh, girl."
- I just love sharing food with people.
Like it was one of the biggest things
I missed during Covid, like,
it's a big part of who I am
especially like as an Aboriginal person.
- You've just had a curry with a Maori.
(upbeat music)