Saltbush and Warrigal Greens Damper
This is your dinnertime damper – and a good opportunity to throw in any green herbs you might have lying in the bottom of your crisper. Crack open the damper and eat it with hot soups, stews or anything slow-cooked to lap up all the juices. The saltbush adds an almost sourdough-like depth of flavour.
Makes 1 full-sized damper, serves 4.
Ingredients 6
450 g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
80 g butter, at room temperature, plus extra to serve
1 1⁄2 tbsp dried saltbush
100 g warrigal greens, thinly sliced
1 sheet banana leaf, 50 cm (19 3/4 in)
375 ml water
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Method 9
Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F).
To a bowl, add the and and mix together using your hands until fully combined.
Add the and and mix through.
Add the , a little at a time, and mix with your fingers until you have a nice sticky dough.
Place some on your work surface, then knead the dough until you have a bread dough consistency. Roll into a log, then set aside.
Before using your , release the oils to make it flexible and bring out the flavours. Hold the banana leaf over an open gas flame and move it across the flame in sections until the oils seep through the entire leaf. If you do not have a gas flame, place it in a dry non-stick frying pan for a few seconds on each side.
Place the dough in the centre of the . Wrap it, folding over each end, and roll it up like a burrito. Then wrap in aluminium foil using the same method.
Place on the oven shelf and cook for 50–60 minutes.
Serve with plain .
Mabu Mabu's tips
Island people make the best damper, but we do it very differently to how most Australian kids make it on their school camps. Damper is the only kind of bread I grew up with. You don’t get freshly baked loaves off the barges – we just had flour and tins of butter. It was always made simply but ‘Island-style’: wrapped in banana leaves and steam-baked in the kup murri (underground oven). This is the first thing my dad ever taught me to cook. It’s loads of fun to make and relies on simple kitchen staples. Damper also saved my business during the 2020 COVID lockdowns, when I started doing damper workshops via Zoom. These days, I’m known everywhere for my damper.
