Amy Hamilton is the chef-patron of Albany’s French-Vietnamese inspired, Liberté. Amy serves up an unpretentious menu full of flavour and made with seasonal produce from the Great Southern.

If you love the idea of combining chicken wings and truffles, scroll down to check out Amy’s truffle honey wings, with produce sourced from Mount Barker Chicken and Truffle Hill truffles.

Or, if you love a French-inspired sweet treat with a whisky liqueur-based sauce, check out Amy’s mandarin crêpes suzette with Limeburners Oráiste Orange Liqueur.

Keen for a road trip? Dine out in the Great Southern, at Liberté, based in the centre, in Albany.

Sourcing and serving up fresh produce from the Great Southern – how does it differ from elsewhere?

The Great Southern is a really diverse region; you get a really great range of products here from shellfish, and oysters. I work a lot with local fishermen who bring me what’s good at the time. The marron here is second to none.

There are a lot of amazing herbs, red and white meats, cheeses, mushrooms as well as fruits and wine. I love the seasonality down here too.

We have fantastic suppliers, we source mandarins from Mount Barker’s Red Gum Orchard and truffles from Truffle Hill in Manjimup.

There’s also a great supplier in Denmark who grows a whole array of native myrtles, cinnamon myrtle, aniseed myrtle, and lemon myrtle.

And there’s a really great finger lime supplier in the Porongurups who I work with in summer, for oysters and even cocktails.

The producers here are very flexible and great to work with; you can ask them to plant a row of something for you or they will call past to drop off extra produce they have, like passionfruit, or serrano chillies and that’s the benefit of working with local producers.

Zero waste with food – are all chefs conscious of limiting waste in the kitchen?

Everything you’re putting on a plate costs money and everything you’re putting in the bin is costing you money, so I think we always look at ways that we can utilise the whole ingredient, so we minimise waste.

When you buy something that’s in season and grown locally, it’s at its best, in terms of quality, and in terms of flavour, it’s also in abundance. As a result, you get it for a lower price point, and when sourcing locally, you’re minimising food miles, so it lasts much longer.

Our local producers are often happy to drop something off twice a week just to keep the freshness at its best.

Truffle honey Mt Barker Chicken wings.

Preparation time: 20minutes | Cooking time: 30minutes | Serves 3-6 depending on greediness level.

Gas tip! You can do this on a barbecue deep fryer if you’re planning an outdoor meal or don’t have a gas cooktop in your kitchen. Just make sure you’ve got the Kwik-Gas ready to go.

Ingredients:

For the truffle honey

• 2 tsp fresh truffle scraps
• 500ml honey

For the truffle honey fried chicken

• 2L peanut oil blend for frying (canola or rice bran oil is also fine)
• 1Kg Mt Barker free-range chicken wings

For the batter

• 150g cornflour
• 150ml water
• 15g cooking salt
• 15g caster sugar

For the glaze

• 60ml truffle honey
• 60ml butter, cubed and at room temperature
• 60ml black vinegar
• 1 tsp sea salt flakes
• 30ml sriracha (you can increase this if you want the dish to be hotter)

Method

Make the truffle honey

• Finely mince truffle scraps and add to honey.
• Store truffle honey in fridge for a week or freeze.

Chef’s Tip: The truffle will start to lose its pungent aroma after the first week, so store any leftover truffle honey in the freezer to preserve its aroma.

Remove wing tips

• Cut remaining wings in half at the joint.
• Let the chicken rest out of the fridge so it comes to room temperature whilst you make the batter and glaze.

Make the batter

• In a bowl, mix all the batter ingredients together.
• Set aside.

Make the glaze

• Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
• Boil for 1-2 minutes to emulsify the ingredients then set aside.

For the garnish

• Freshly shaved truffle
• Your favourite pickles

Now to make the dish!

Chef’s Tip: Don’t overcrowd when deep frying as it will bring the temperature down quickly. I recommend frying the chicken in 2-3 lots, depending on your pan size.

1. Heat the peanut oil blend in a deep fryer to 180C. You can also use a deep saucepan.
2. Stir the batter to ensure the cornflour is loose and evenly mixed then coat each wing in batter.
3. Drop the wings into the hot oil one at a time.
4. Fry the wings for 5 minutes each.
5. Using a slotted spoon, remove the chicken from the hot oil and place onto a wire cake rack to drain. Repeat until all the wings are cooked.
6. Place all of the deep fried wings in a bowl and add the glaze a few spoonful’s at a time until the wings are evenly coated and glossy, but not soggy. You might not use all of the glaze.

To serve

Toss some finely shaved truffle through the bowl of fried chicken for an extra fresh truffle hit and serve with whichever pickles you fancy and your preferred cold glass of beer or other beverage.

Enjoy!

Amy Hamilton and Liberté.

Find out more about Amy Hamilton on Instagram and Facebook and to experience her French-Vietnamese fusion using Great Southern produce, visit Liberté.

---

Mt Barker Chicken

Did you know? Kleenheat provides the LPG energy needs required by our business customer Mt Barker Chicken.

We’ve invested many years into becoming experts in understanding the needs of chicken producers.

We’re proud to have a close working relationship with the Mt Barker Chicken farms, as they rely on keeping the temperature in their poultry sheds regulated, for the comfort of the chickens.