The Hoppy Chef

(Title courtesy of my sainted mother)
Also, my deepest apologies that I haven't had much time to catch up on my blogging, so the next few posts will be out of order.

When I came to Australia, there were really two things that I knew I absolutely wanted to do: see a kangaroo, and eat a kangaroo (though preferably not the same one). Well, if anyone has had any contact with me whatsoever in the past two months, you know that Mission #1 has been very much accomplished. Mission #2 has taken me a lot longer, but I can finally check it off!

I'd put my kangaroo dinner off for a while simply because I was hoping to get it at a restaurant, where I could be sure it would be prepared to its full potential. However, the opportunity never presented itself, and with my time here drawing to a close I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands.

Since I've never prepared kangaroo before, I decided on a pre-marinated one that just needed cooking. All of the preparatory material I read warned of the evils of tough kangaroo meat: "Just a few minutes' searing on each side! Always serve rare or medium rare!" So I dutifully heated up a smidge of oil and threw that kangaroo on the the pan. After a few minutes of frantic sizzling, I pulled it off and set it aside to rest for a little bit before cutting (how professional!)

The meat was quite red, although it turned more purple inside once it had cooked a bit.

Left in the pan was what could have been the beginnings of an amazing glaze, but since I didn't have any mashed potatoes or anything, I couldn't come up with any use for kangaroo gravy. Instead, I threw some veggies in with a bit of garlic, and they soaked up those flavors beautifully-- delicious!

I was pleased to find that I had avoided overcooking the meat, and it was indeed nice and tender. It was pretty tasty-- couldn't really compare with a real cow steak in my mind, but what can?-- and went with the veggies quite nicely. The steak had a slight sweetness to it that I hadn't anticipated, which added an interesting depth, and a relatively strong flavor but it wasn't particularly gamey. All in all, a good experience!

I had some green beans, which would have looked prettier with the meat but I got hungry and ate them for a snack yesterday... oops!

Yummy yummy!