I apologise my vegetarian friends, look the other way for a little while if you wish.
This is something that I’m very pleased with at the moment. Andy is having a bit of an iron issue so we’re trying to up the red meat intake in the house and given that I go into paroxysms of guilt if I even look at the beef, roo is my red meat of choice. I also happen to like gamey, lean meat so it works on a taste level too. Hooray.
Kangaroo is a meat that has to be cooked either really quickly or until it falls apart because it has almost no fat so it becomes tough very quickly. You cannot have a well done piece of roo steak unless you want to be there all day gnawing at something extremely unappetising, so if rare meat is not your beat but you’re interested in roo, keep walking and I’ll post a delicious roo rendang recipe for you soon.
Miso marinated roo
notes: if you can, cook this outside (on the barbecue or what-have-you) because you need to cook it at a high temperature which will seriously smoke out the house and, in many houses, often set off the smoke alarm – an occurrence which tends to make me lose my shit because I fucking hate loud noises. Also, one time a share house we lived in partially burned down while we were sleeping and the smoke alarm completely saved our lives so I am firmly of the belief that you should not inure yourself to the sound by setting the bloody thing off every time you make toast.
Also, if you are the planning sort, try to marinate this for 6-12 hours but it’s not crucial – it will tenderise the meat
2-3 TBS white miso
few drops sesame oil
2-3 TBS rice bran or olive oil, depending on your flavour preference
3 TBS cooking sake
1 tsp sugar
ground pepper
3 roo steaks or fillets (usually they come in a pack of 3ish)
To prepare the marinade just mix all the ingredients (except the meat) in a biggish bowl, taste, and adjust the seasoning to your taste – this marinade would definitely take some garlic and/or chili, or ginger too. Add the meat to the bowl and coat with the marinade. Cover and chuck in the fridge to marinate – 4 hours to overnight is great but to be honest you can just leave it 15-20 mins and it’ll be right.
Heat your barbecue (use the flat plate, not the grill) or pan to a high heat and add a little oil. Put the meat on the hotplate. You want to cook it for about 4 minutes a side – if it’s really thick, say 4 cm, allow and extra 30 seconds to a minute per side, and likewise if it’s really thin (1½-2 cm) maybe detract 30 seconds per side. Try not to move it around too much or turn it over lots of times. You know it’s done when – if you stick a knife in the centre and look in the middle – the meat looks rare but not the dark red/purple that the meat is when it’s raw. Now the next bit is important – put the cooked meat on a plate, cover with foil and let it rest for 10 minutes. It will be much more juicy and melt-in-your-mouth if you do this.
I served this with steamed kale, zucchini and cauliflower, and a variation of the quick red cabbage coleslaw which was:
1/8 white cabbage
1 carrot
a bit of fennel
1 clove garlic
dressing:
rice wine vinegar
cooking sake
rice bran oil
tamari
miso
sesame oil
celery salt
salt
chili paste
Sorry I didn’t write down the dressing proportions but it’s just based on the same boiled dressing technique of the red cabbage one with a couple of extra things thrown in (I’ve been meaning to put my grandma’s proper recipe up, I’ll hopefully get to it this week).
