The emergence of Australian regional cuisine

Every great culinary nation has regional cuisines. Food from the north of Italy is as different to the food from the south as it is from France. And Chinese cuisines vary more from province to province than European cuisines do from country to country. So why should Australia be any different?

Our relative youth as a nation is no excuse; the US isn't much older but just about every city on its east coast has its own style of pizza and a regional sandwich. Australian states and territories need their own regional cuisines, dishes we can hold up as parochial icons of where we come from. Tasmania has its scallop pies and the Northern Territory its near-pathological devotion to laksa, but the rest of the country could do with a little help. Could Victoria develop its own style of pizza? What about a specific NSW barbecue sauce? Here are a couple of suggestions I'd love to see on menus in South Australia and Western Australia.

Green Parmy

This combines two icons of South Australian cuisine: the chicken parmy and the pie floater.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 chicken breasts
• 100g bacon pieces
• 1.5 litres vegetable oil, for deep frying
• 1 cup plain flour
• salt and pepper, to season
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups panko breadcrumbs
• parmesan, to serve
• 2 tbsp finely shredded parsley, to serve
• lemon wedges, to serve

Green pea purée

• 50g butter
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 small brown onion
• 1½ cups chicken stock
• 3 cups frozen peas
• 2 cups baby spinach leaves

METHOD

1. With the back of a heavy knife or meat mallet, pound the chicken to tenderise it and flatten it into a sheet 1.5cm thick. Fry the bacon pieces in a little oil until browned and crisp.

2. For the green pea purée, heat a small pan over medium heat and add butter, garlic and onion. Fry for about 3 minutes, until soft but not brown. Add stock, peas and spinach leaves and bring to a simmer. Transfer to a blender and blend to a smooth purée.

3. Heat the oil to 170C. Place the flour onto a small tray and season well with salt and pepper. Place the eggs and breadcrumbs onto separate trays. Insert a skewer into each piece of chicken and, using it as a hook, dip the chicken into the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs, ensuring that it is coated completely and pressing the breadcrumbs firmly onto the meat. Fry in batches for 5 minutes, turning once or twice. Drain on a wire rack, standing each on its thin end for better drainage.

4. Place each chicken parmy on a serving plate and top with a few generous spoons of the green purée. Scatter with the bacon chips. Then, using a microplane, grate plenty of parmesan over the top. Scatter with a little parsley and serve with a wedge of lemon – chips optional.

Serves 4

Adam's tip: Schnitzels in Australia are a product of the same German migration that seeded our wine industry, but there are some differences. We favour chicken or beef over veal or pork and deep-fry ours in oil rather than shallow-frying in butter.

Seafood sandwich with spicy cocktail sauce

West Australian seafood is fantastic quality, and the Sandgropers' love of a bread roll is well documented. Why not put them together?

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tuna steak (about 200g, 2cm thick)
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 6 bread rolls
• 8 large cooked prawns, peeled and cleaned, cut into 2cm pieces
• butter lettuce leaves
• 2 tbsp finely shredded parsley
• lemon wedges, to serve

Spicy cocktail sauce

• 1 cup good-quality mayonnaise
• ½ cup tomato sauce
• ¼ cup sour cream
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp sriracha

METHOD

1. Combine all the ingredients for the cocktail sauce and set aside.

2. Cut the tuna steak into rectangular batons where the ends are 2cm square. Season well with salt and pepper. Heat a frying pan over high heat and add the olive oil. Sear the tuna for just 20 seconds on each side, then remove from the pan and rest. Refrigerate until ready to use.

3. Cut the tuna into thick slices and fill the bread rolls equally with the tuna slices, prawn pieces and lettuce. Drizzle generously with the cocktail sauce and scatter with parsley. Serve with lemon wedges.

Serves 6

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale October 25.