Spaghetti with a spicy kangaroo and mushroom sauce

Kangaroo mince is wonderful. Cheap, lean and tasty. It works well in pasta sauces. You could use it in place of beef in bolognese, if you wanted. This, of course, isn't bolognese. Bolognese--real, honest-to-God bologonese--includes at least two meats. Mine includes four. More if you count the plethora of pig-related products I throw in in addition to the mince.

Too, the addition of curry powder. Adding curry powder to a meaty pasta sauce, for me, is a nostalgic thing. My father used to do with his heavily Australianised 'bolognese' and to this day I can remember the smell of the stuff wafting through the house on the one evening a month or so he'd be in the kitchen.



Ingredients:

600 g kangaroo mince
500 mL beef stock
handful of mushrooms of your choosing, sliced
100 g tomato paste
1/3 cup brandy
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 celery sticks, diced
2 chillies, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 1/2 tbs hot curry powder
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

In a large sauceheat, heat some oil over a low flame. Add the onion, garlic, chillies, celery and carrot. Stir and fry for five minutes, then add a tablespoon of curry powder. Stir and fry for another five minutes, then add the mince. Stir well. Brown the mince over the course of 2-3 minutes, then add the brandy, stirring as you do. Let it reduce, then spoon in the tomato paste. Stir it in, add the stock and cover the pan. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid. Stir in the remaining curry powder. Simmer for a further 25 minutes, then add the mushrooms. Simmer for five more minutes, then cover the pan and take it off the heat. Let it sit this way while you bring some lightly salted water to the boil and cook some spaghetti. Don't cook the spaghetti according to packet instructions--use your senses by tasting the pasta when you think it's about done. It should be soft, but have just a little bite to it. Al dente. Toss the pasta and sauce together.

Kangaroo 'gringo' tacos

Let's face it--most tacos you get in the west, they're nothing like the Mexican ones. For starters, Mexican tacos don't use minced beef or cheese or lettuce--the primary ingredients of the tacos we're familiar with. I'm going to upload an authentic recipe next week, but tonight's effort will be my own bastardised tacos. Instead of using the usual beef, though, I'm using kangaroo. The strong flavour of kangaroo makes for an interesting change. Too, you'll find they're much better than the usual 'gringo' tacos.

Kangaroo mince can be had cheaply at most supermarkets in Australia. It's very low in fat--'98% fat free', proclaims the packaging--and, yeah, it's delicious. I've said this before, I think, but many people falsely believe kangaroo is tough and dry. It shouldn't be. With the mince, the trick is to marinate it and then cook it low and slow.

Too, the seasoning mix I use. The quantities of spices I give will make for some leftover. Save it and use it for something else within the next few days.

Ingredients:

400 g kangaroo mince
10 hard taco shells
2 limes, juiced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jar taco sauce or tomato salsa
1/2 red onion, diced
1/3 iceberg lettuce, shredded
2 tbs whole allspice berries
1 tbs whole coriander seeds
1 tbs whole cumin seeds
1 tbs whole white peppercorns
1 tsp coarse chilli powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp sweet paprika
oil
sliced fresh chilli, to garnish

Put the allspice, coriander, cumin and peppercorns in a small, non-stick frypan. Roast over a gentle heat, shaking the pan occasionally to move the spices around. You'll know they're finished roasting when they smell spectacular. Roasting spices isn't an exact science. Use your senses. Tip the spices into a mortar and grind with the chilli powder, sea salt and sweet paprika until you have a fine powder.



Add 3 tbs of the spice mix and the lime juice to the kangaroo mince in a bowl. Combine thoroughly with your hands. Cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate for a hour or two.

Heat some oil in a large fry pan over a medium-low flame. Add the garlic and fry until it starts to soften, then add the seasoned mince. Stir and fry until cooked through.

Meanwhile, heat the taco shells in the oven according to the instructions on the packaging.

Don't overstuff the tacos. Add a little lettuce and onion, then add a bit of mince. Spoon taco sauce over the meat. Add chilli slices if using.

Kangaroo steaks with a brandy, mushroom and sour cream sauce

Ingredients:

2 kangaroo steaks
1 clove garlic, finely minced
250 g assorted mushrooms, roughly chopped
200 mL sour cream
30 mL brandy
1 tbs butter, softened
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste
olive oil
potato wedges, to serve

Pre-heat oven to 220*C. Pre-heat fry pan over a medium high.

Season the steaks with sea salt. Too, drizzle a little olive oil over them. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side, then transfer pan to oven. Roast for five to six minutes. Return pan to stove over a medium flame. Remove steaks. Add the butter to the pan. When butter has melted, add the garlic and mushrooms. Stir and fry for five minutes, then add the brandy. When brandy has reduced by half, add the sour cream and stir in. Cook for two or three minutes.

Curried Morton Bay bugs

Morton--sometimes spelt as Morten--Bay bugs are my favourite crustacean. Easy. The meat-to-shell ratio isn't too bad in comparison with, say, scampi and crab. The flavour is tops. And too, in Melbourne, where the bugs aren't as popular as they are in Sydney, they're reasonably affordable. I picked up a few on special today and figured I'd make a curry with them.



Of course, if you're not from Australia, you probably don't have access to bugs at all. I'm not sure if we export them, but if we do they'd probably be ridiculously overpriced. Feel free to substitute the bugs with a crustacean of your choosing--scampi, prawns, crayfish, crab, whatever. Keep in mind you may need to adjust the quantity of gravy and cooking times if you're using something other than bugs. This recipe makes enough for two people.

Ingredients:

8 Morton Bay/Balmain bugs (12 if they're small)
200 mL can coconut milk
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large shallot, peeled
1 small lump of ginger, peeled
1 piece of tamarind* that's about the size of your thumbnail
1 small lemon, juiced
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp freshly ground coriander
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp poppy seeds
vegetable, sunflower or peanut oil
steamed rice, to serve

Place the piece of tamarind in 100 mL hot water and set aside.

Combine 100 mL of the coconut milk with 200 mL water. Leave the other 100 mL undiluted.

Blitz the spices, garlic, shallot, ginger, lemon juice and 1 tsp water in a food processor. This will be your curry paste.

Extract the meat from the tails of the bugs by twisting the tails off and then breaking a couple of tail segments with your fingers or the tip of a knife. If you do it right, you'll be able to pull the meat out in one piece.

Heat a generous splash of oil in a small saucepan over a low flame. When hot, add the curry paste and fry for five minutes. Add the diluted coconut milk. Stir. Cook for fifteen minutes. Pluck the tamarind piece out of the water it was soaking in. Don't worry if there's a little bit left behind. Pour the water, along with the undiluted coconut milk, into the saucepan. Cook for a further fifteen minutes before adding the bug meat. Simmer for a couple of minutes or until cooked through.

Use a pair of tongs to fish out the bugs and distribute them evenly atop two piles of steamed rice. Spoon over the gravy and serve.



* Tamarind can be found in Indian and Sri Lankan grocers. You can buy it in concentrate form, but in this recipe we're using a bar. In my local places, at least, tamarind bars are sold near the spices. They're about the size of a small block of chocolate and look, well, kind of nasty. Like they're mouldly. Feel free to substitute the concentrate for the bar, but be careful--the concentrate is really potent stuff, so you'd only want to use the tiniest amount.

Crocodile in coconut milk

Crocodile meat is quite mild in flavour. A bit like chicken. A bit like firm, white fish. Cook it incorrectly and it'll be tough as a roadside shoe. Cook it correctly and it's wonderful. This gravy, simple as it is, can be used for chicken and various kinds of seafood.

Where to get crocodile, you ask? Well, you could try a butcher or poultry store. Ask them to order it in. Or you could do as I do and hit an oriental-owned and operated fishmonger--especially one that specialises in frozen produce. Crocodile is always sold frozen. Most will sell crocodile steaks for a reasonable price.

Ingredients:

800 gram crocodile steak, cut into thin strips
300 mL coconut milk
2 shallots, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 red chillis, finely diced
1 lime, juiced
small lump of ginger, grated
1 tsp fish sauce
a couple of sprigs of fresh coriander, leaves picked
a couple of sprigs of sweet (Thai) basil, leaves picked
steamed rice, to serve

Heat a little oil in a fry pan over a low-medium flame. Fry shallots, garlic, ginger and chillies until they start to soften, then add the crocodile. Fry, stirring constantly, for 4-5 minutes before adding the coconut milk, fish sauce, sweet basil leaves and coriander leaves. Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Squeeze in the lime juice and give a final stir

Kangaroo with pepper sauce

Kangaroo deserves to be more widely consumed. It's accessible--most supermarkets I've seen stock it--and it's lean and it's delicious. It's relatively affordable, too. Sure, it's gone up in price lately, but is it as cheap as steak? Well, no. Not really. Not for steak that's actually good. Rubbish two-star supermarket steak doesn't count. Kangaroo is another meat that people can be a little worried about preparing. It has a bad reputation. Overcook it and it'll dry out due to its leanness. The solution? Don't overcook it. Kangaroo has a very strong flavour--stronger than venison, even--and that's swell, really, as it means it stands up nicely to strong-flavoured sauces and rubs like this one, which combines three varieties of peppercorn. Speaking of which, you're not aiming to grind the peppercorns into a powder. For this, simply cracking them is enough. When fried, the steaks will have a crunchy, peppery crust.

Ingredients:
4 kangaroo steaks
1/2 cup beef or veal stock (either home made or good quality store-bought stuff)
1 tbs freshly crushed black peppercorns
1 tbs freshly crushed green peppercorns
1 tbs freshly crushed white peppercorns
1 tbs sea salt
a shot of brandy (or cognac or cheap whisky)
olive oil
5 tiny knobs of butter, softened

Rub a little olive oil into the surface of each steak, along with the salt and the cracked peppercorns. Retain any excess peppercorns--you can add them to the sauce at the end.

Pre-heat the pan to medium high. Place the steaks in the pan and fry for 3-4 minutes a side, depending on their thickness and how long they've been out of the fridge. When you turn them, spoon a knob of butter over each one. Once the steaks are cooked, place them on a plate and leave in a warm place. Immediately add the excess peppercorns and the shot of brandy to the pan. Careful, here. If the pan's hot enough, the alcohol could flame up, setting your curtains and/or you on fire. Stir with a wooden spoon while the alcohol reduces. Once it has reduced, add the stock. Once that's reduced by at least half, add the final knob of butter and cut the heat. Stir the butter in and spoon the sauce over the steaks.

Emu meatballs with a red wine dipping sauce

When I cooked emu for my students, once again I worked with the sausages. Emu has a strong, meaty taste. It stands up well to all of the sauces typically paired with red meats, including red wine jus. Emu sausages can be ordered in most butchers and poultry stores. If you're serving emu as a sit down dinner, it might be more appropriate to order a fan fillet. If you're serving the meatballs at some kind of function, though, simply jam a toothpick into each meat ball.

Ingredients:

1 kilogram emu sausages
3/4 cup red wine
1/4 cup beef or veal stock (either home made or quality store-bought stuff)
6 tbs unsalted butter, softened
2 shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Using a paring knife, slit sausages open and extract meat. Take a pinch of meat in your fingers and roll it into a ball. Season with salt and pepper, then repeat the process until you've used all the meat. Fry meatballs over a medium heat for 5-8 minutes or until cooked through.

Heat a tablespoon of butter in a fry pan. When hot, add shallots and garlic. Stir until soft and then add the red wine and stock. When the red wine and stock mixture starts to boil, drop the temperature and allow to simmer for a good 15-20 minutes. The volume should reduce by half, if not more. When wine and stock have reduced, whisk in the remaining butter a tablespoon at a time. Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.