Ah, Australia Day. I’m glad it fell on a Sunday, because shops and stores aren’t generally open then anyway, I used to hate holidays, as the only things you could do were outdoorsy things that I’m not into. Either way, I stayed home and decided to eat one of our most celebrated and national animals. The noble Kangaroo.
Now, if you live here, you’ll know that there are tons of them, everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if these killing machines lurked in the city as well. They are cute, but they can eviscerate you quickly with their razor sharp claws. Their pouches are stinky too.
I’ve never cooked Kangaroo before, other than sausages. It’s texture is really weird. It’s completely devoid of fat, which is great if you’re watching your weight, but terrible if you are trying to cook something. You either have to eat it rare, or cook the shit out of it, which is what I did to make pie goodness. The meat is a bright ruby colour and is very… wet. The genius who buttered this one left some sinew on it, so I had to remove that with a sharp knife. No probs, although afterwards I was covered in Kanga juice. I cooked the pie filling for about 5 hours. The meat doesn’t fall apart like beef, pork or lamb, but it is very tender once decimated by a slow cooker.
This makes about 3 biggish personal pies
Kangaroo Pie:
Filling:
500gm Kangaroo steak, diced
2x Bay leaves
1 x large tomato, diced
1 x Brown onion, diced
2 x garlic cloves, smooshed
1 x cup beef or chicken stock
about ten mushrooms, cut up
sprinkling of marjoram
sprinkling of lemon myrtle
squeeze of red gum honey (Use anything though, I guess)
Pastry:
I used shortcrust and puff, although as you can see, it didn’t puff.. I probably didn’t add enough butter or fold it properly, so just buy it in if you want it to be flawless.
I’m not going to post a pastry recipe here, look it up, it’s everywhere.
So, basically just throw all the filling mix in the slow cooker, set to slow, check every hour or so. Have your pastry balls/bought sheets in the fridge, especially in this heat, as they’ll dry out so fast, you might as well make bricks to hurl at the late night revellers coming back from the Skyworks.
Keep tasting your filling, and add anything else that might work – I could have added red wine, but I didn’t have any. At the end, it was a little watery, so I made a paste with cornflour and mixed it in to thicken it up. Leave it to cool once you’re happy with the meat’s tenderness.
Line your pan/ramekin etc with shortcrust pastry on the bottom, and spoon in your filling. Add cheese if you’re feeling adventurous. I wasn’t, I had to eat this thing on my own, haha. Tuck the puff pastry over the top and brush with butter or olive oil. Put in oven at about 180 degrees for about 25 mins, depending on your oven. You want it to be firm on the bottom when you take it out, so slow is best.
You must get some tomato sauce, and make a little Aussie map on top, or it’s not authentic.