In the interests of being a frugavore and wasting nothing, I am making the beef casserole tonight from the 'Frugavore' recipe book. I'm subsituting beef with some very out of date frozen kangaroo (from March) and a half used bottle of red wine which is so old the lees have stuck to the side of the bottle.
A month ago I probably would have just left these ingredients lying around forever or at least until I moved out, but now I think I'd like to test the science of 'use by' and compare it to my test of 'sniff by' dates. If it smells bad, it probably is bad. If it doesn't, chances are that the blood coloured frost on that kangaroo steak will just melt away in the mix, and the preservatives in the wine will keep it good for another decade.
Here's
What went into my casserole:
2 roma tomatoes
2 roo steaks
1 cup of wine (approximately. I'm a dyslexic measurer)
1 brown onion
1 tspn of ground cumin seeds from the spice man at the West End Davies Park markets
1 stock cube and an approximate amount of water
Fry and boil etcetera (I'm also a dyslexic recipe follower, making my own is more fun)
Good. While that's cooking, I'm off to read some high brow literature. Imagine the likes of Jules Verne, Herodotus or Margaret Drabble. (You caught me, I'm reading children's action adventures again...it's for work, I swear!)
Here's how it looks, rich, no? (My teatowel totally draped itself into this shot by the way, it's always trying to hog the limelight. What a poser!)
I served it with some mashed potatoes - keep the skins on them! They're tasty, you're not wasting the best part of the potato and they add texture. Chuck some parsley on top to disguise any kind of serving faux pas, and hey presto! You got yourself a yummy old sustainable meal of kangaroo...
Where to find Roo meat: My local Woolies stocks Macro Meats Gourmet Game, which can be found
here (they have roo recipes on their site), and I can swear by their roasts, steaks and utterly yummy sausages (even when they're out of date by 5 months!). You can also buy it at some Farmers markets and local butchers.
Roo meat is quite gamey, but can also be prepared so that it tastes more like beef - as in this casserole. Generally any herbs, wine etc added to the mix take away from the gamey flavour if you're not into that. I got used to it, even after being a vegetarian for four years.
Several things you may not have known about Roos
- Kangaroos cause practically no soil degredation because they have soft pads not hooves
- They cause little methane pollution, unlike cattle who, as we all know are killing us softly with their gasses (it's payback, we've had them shoved into the horrible conditions of factory farms for years)
- Kangaroos are not farmed, but are wild game
- 'Harvesting' 10-15% of the kangaroo population is necessary to prevent damages to the environment.
- Surveys are undertaken to determine quotas of kangaroos that can be harvested
- Kangaroo contains less than 2% fat
- Food and water does not need to be trucked to them, so unlike cattle which if grain fed require huge amounts resources like petrol and water, kangaroos just nibble their way through whatever's there, and whatever is there also determines population!
- The meat can be prepared in exactly the same way as ordinary beef: stir fries, roasts, sausages. Despite the exotic things that most recipe books seem to do with roo, it really is just meat!
Where to try Roo for the first time:
If you're a kangaroo virgin the best thing to do is eat it at a fancy schmancy restaurant so you know how it should taste when you cook it at home. Try somewhere like
Tukka in West End.
The Verdict:
It may have taken a little over 2 hours to prepare and cook, but it was so worth it. The meat is still tender...freezers are awesome! The broth is really nice and rich (thank you ancient wine) and the tomatoes and parsley make it so flavoursome and rustic! Next time I'm using more tomatoes! This serves 2 moderately hungry people or half a footballer. I have a food baby. Shall I call him Skippy?
