Skippy Size Me

March 26th, 2009 · Australian

The Pom is on diet and we both trying to eat as healthy as possible when we are cooking at home. Usually we go for groceries shopping together so we know what dishes to prepare with the ingredients we bought. This is what happen when I left him in charge of the shopping and when I asked him what is for dinner, he said, "Kangaroo meat". I was speechless.

"It is high in protein and low in fat!", he emphasised. But he has no clue what to do with the kangaroo steaks that he bought and I have never had kangaroo meat before; let alone cooking it! Eventually I had to ask for some help from friends over Twitter and google-ing for kangaroo meat recipes.

And the first tip I found - soak the meat in oil for at least 15 mins. So in it goes.

Kangaroo meat is nothing new, and it is widely available in supermarkets these days with various cuts including steaks, fillets, and even 'kanga bangas' (kangaroo sausages). However, only 14.5% of Australians were reported in 2008 as eating kangaroo meat at least four times per year.

"I will never eat the animals on the coat of Arms of Australia!" Big D detested.

I am like everyone else, I have no urge to try kangaroo meat. I know I am being silly but I just can't help thinking the kangaroo meat is probably some off cuts from the road kills. I also know the fact that kangaroo meat can be very tough if cooked for too long and a strong gamy taste.

Most of the recipes on internet is either grill it, throw on a barbie, or just cook to medium rare like beef steak. I am not ready to face the failure by ended up having tough chewy gamy chunk of roo meat, so I decided to marinate the hell out of it with lots of herbs and spices, and a big squeeze of lime juice all over and hopefully it will tenderise the meat further! I decided to whisk up a Vietnamese Bún chả dish by grilling the kangaroo meat then served on a bed of green salad and rice vermicelli noodle.

I was actually quite surprise how much I love kangaroo meat! The quick "grill, flip and grill" technique works like a charm, the meat is medium rare, tender, and juicy inside. Despite the roo meat is heavily marinated with lemongrass, chilli and curry leaves, I actually can't taste the gaminess as everyone been talking about. It tasted just like beef!

Looks like the kangaroo meat definitely will be on the menu many meals to come. I am loving it. I am having ideas of making a kanga pizza one day, just like the ones at Australian Hotel. Pizza is definitely throw the diet off the chart, but with high in protein and low in fat kangaroo meat, so it is all good.

"tsk.. .tsk.... tsk... tsk...." (pretending to sound like a skippy)

(Note: I won't bother to post the recipe, is just something I throw together with the ingredients I found in the fridge. Let me know if you want it, and I will update it with the recipe upon requests)