I do most of the cooking here. As mentioned above I’ve been honing my Asian food skills.
Mapo tofu
Beef bulgogi noodles
Soboro Don
that looks so good Bob. I’m hungry now.
I think I am going to regret asking Bill about Australian cuisine. While I think I am out of luck in procuring camel or kangaroo, emu is very likely doable. I need to make some inquires but more years than I care to admit ago when I was a meat cutter, the butcher I worked for did butcher for a local emu farm. Need to see if they are still around. If not I found a possible source in Western Washington. Not exactly close but I go there often enough that I could probably arrange a pick up. You can buy it online but it would cost near $100 for a couple steaks and a handful of pastrami. But now I am on a mission to make an Australian dinner. Worst case scenario I pay the big bucks and ship it and call it an adventure. Bet not to many of my friends can say they have had a gourmet emu dinner.
Bill,
would this be a fair meal to whip up and say I have experienced Australian Cuisine. . . Grilled Emu, Grilled Beef Snags, Roasted Beetroot (beets) served with smashed avocado and balsamic vinegar, and Lamington for dessert.
Already one possible source for Emu but its a heck of a long ways away in Western Washington. Outright it would be far cheaper to have it shipped. But if I can incorporate it into a regular trip over the mountains then maybe. But I also found another breeder somewhat closer to home in Hamilton Montana. And there I could make a run to the Bitterroot River and do some fishing as an excuse or go to Lolo Hot springs as an excuse. The search continues but at this point I think no matter how I acquire it I need this in my life. . .
right after I make my candied bacon ice cream which I still didn’t get too.
Devon,
Herself wanted me to tell you that you should consider my advice as exotic advice (for people who like venison) and that mashed or roasted pumpkin, yabbies (crawfish), and Anzac Bisuits made with old fashioned rolled oats would be her choice. As she grew up rurally, most of her diet was some variation of British… Meat and 3 Veg.
Keep in mind that over 50% of Australians are now first or second generation Australians, so food choices have changed. Melbourne for example, has a Greek community of about 400,000 people, has been holding the title of the 3rd largest Greek city in the world for decades and is considered as the city with the largest Greek-speaking population outside Greece.
So you could make almost anything (except sadly, Mexican food) and call it Australian. But stick with my list, and send you her recipe for Anzacs.
Amazon Link pairs well with emu burgers.
Bill I did also consider Anzac and may still do that. I took your considerations and then did some googling for the dishes I selected. Emu comes up on I think every site I looked at. As did lamington. Beets seem to be a common theme and are easy to aquire but since Herself is hot on roasted pumpkin I could easily do that if I can find them. They are pretty seasonal here. But I will make an effort to see if I can come up with a small one. As for the “exotic” I like exotic and I eat venison regularly. I can pretty much say the wife has turned her nose up to the entire proposition as she does not like venison, the thought of emu made her gag, and she doesn’t eat beets. Now the pumpkin doesn’t make it any easier either because she isn’t a squash person. So this whole meal will be lost on her.
Interesting you mentioned that I could make almost anything and call it Australian and you even mentioned satay. I read that Australians love Thai food. So do I. But with this I am less interested in what the everyday Australian eats on a daily basis and am looking for authentic and uniquely Australian dishes made with things I can actually acquire. So unless I am way off on something and the dishes I pciked are “not authentic Australian” then I will stick with them because aside from the emu I should be able to get everything else.
Since herself likes pumpkin and I like beets maybe I’ll do both. I have never had roasted beets always either boiled or pickled. So that right away sounds intriguing.
Herself wanted me to mention the Tim Tam Slam. You bite off a corner off each diagonal and suck your coffee (or other beverage listed in the link below) through the middle of the biscuit.
Just remember Devon, you are buying pumpkin not jack-o’-lanterns. Bring out the big knife!
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Bill,
I had to laugh at that one. Pumpkin in the U.S. is for Jack-O-Lanterns or pies. But as a foodie interested in out of the box cooking I have an appreciation for it. I have made pumpkin soup (Indian style ask Dan I just sent him an acorn knock off) and pumpkin chowder. Next on my list, unless Herself wins out and I roast it and mash it, is pumpkin FLOWER soup. Apparently its a thing for impatient people to eat it before it even forms a fruit.
Oh and pumpkin is also an excuse for Americans to develope a spice to put in their over priced fancy coffee every fall.
Herself is most interested in the Indian Pumpkin Soup recipe and will send you her Thai Pumpkin soup recipe
Now that we have Costco we get Libby’s pumpkin puree & we learnt it is neither made with jack-o’-lanterns or pumpkin. Libby’s reportedly grow a proprietary strain of tan-skinned Dickinson squash similar to butternut.
And go figure somebody has already taken that into consideration and published a mock coconut spaghetti squash pie recipe.
Bob, that does look good.
I always smile when I see tofu on the menu as years ago, we had a colleague believing that her love of tofu was not helping the tofudabeest get off the endangered species list, thanks to a Garry Larson cartoon.
Devon, if you have never had roasted beets you are missing something. Wrap in aluminum foil and put on the fire. We have done it on an outdoor fire and it becomes beet candy! Yum.
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That sounds great Lou. We have a back yard fire pit and cook all sorts of stuff in aluminum foil in it. Can’t wait to throw some beats in it.
I’ll write it put when I get a chance. It’s not found in any book. It’s my take on a traditional squash indian curry . But you had better have spices and love them. It has all sorts of fragrant and flavorful spices
Devon, not just beets but Golden Beets for the best flavor.
Bill, Devon’s Indian pumpkin soup is Devine. Wide range of distinct flavors. Most folks can’t develop a good flavor profile and generally end up with something that has a single flavor. It takes a good chef to bring out multiple flavors and Devon certainly did that. To reinforce this, my Herself is not keen on traditional Asian/Indian cuisine, but she loved Devon’s soup.
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Well I sorta have a source for Emu. Its in Western Washington but I can get it if I make a trip that way which I am bound to do. Nice guy and he is even Australian with a thick accent. Bill mentioned that emu was akin to venison and he said it tastes like grain fed elk. Well elk is my favorite of all game meats so that makes it all the more intriguing.
Thanks for the kind review. One of the things I love about Thai and more so Indian food is the very distinct flavor profile. Especially Indian. They use such fragrant and bold flavors. Cumin, Anise, Allspice, Clove, Cardamom are the main ones. To be fair I couldn’t find a pumpkin so yours was made with roasted acorn squash which in my opinion works equally well. I can’t really tell a difference between the two and likely will make Herself’s recipe with an acorn squash.
Coconut milk and greek yogurt also add to the flavor.