Adventures Down Under: Cooking Kangaroo

It all started at the meat counter.

Well, the meat counter at St. Lawrence Farmer's Market, to be honest. J and I were browsing through the various vendors, pausing to look into the display cases as we chatted. Most of the fare was pretty standard: bright red slabs of beef ribeye, rows of marinaded and stuffed chicken breasts, and pale rounds of pork tenderloin. The selection is plentiful, and a couple vendors also sell some less common offerings, namely, game meats: bison striploin, rack of venison. But one counter in particular caught our eye.

This particular butcher imports some pretty exotic stuff. Well, exotic to me at least: camel, wild boar, ostrich (though I'm aware you can buy emu from a local farm just outside Calgary). J and I looked at the meat. We looked at each other. I don't know who came up with the idea first, but the question hung in the air:

What if we tried to cook one of these meats? What if we tried to cook, say... kangaroo?

At first we balked and laughed as we walked away. But the idea was there, and suddenly it didn't seem like such an impossibility. Half an hour later, we'd agreed that we'd at least try it out, and made plans to try it out the next week. In the end, we had to wait two weeks for the next shipment to come in, and then we were off on our Australian adventure.

I did do some research online about how to cook kangaroo. Sadly, the information seems a little sparse, and what little I could find seemed somewhat non-specific. A few sites suggested I import Australian marinade. Others just vaguely indicated that I should marinade in "Australian flavors". A couple sites had some recipes, where I figured that they were treating the kangaroo the same way they would any other red meat. The only consensus was that since kangaroos are a game meat, not to cook it past medium rare (would that even be possible if you bought ground kangaroo?).

The big day arrived. We stood nervously at the counter, and a butcher with a friendly smile came to help us.

"We want to cook kangaroo," we declared. "We have no idea what we're doing."

The butcher was pretty patient with us. He asked if we'd rather cook the ground kangaroo (apparently very versatile, one of the few recipes I found was from Emeril Lagasse, and he made kangaroo pie-- by pie, he really means dumplings though) or the loin. We went with the loin, because really, who doesn't love a good, thick piece of meat? He gave us some suggestions for a marinade (apparently regular BBQ sauce would work just fine), and reminded us not to overcook it or it would get tough. Just under a pound of kangaroo meat cost us $20. J claimed it looked like liver.

In the end, this is the marinade I came up with. Measurements are approximate, since I really just poured things in randomly and hoped for the best.

1/4 cup red wine
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
pepper
(I'd also throw in some crushed red pepper flakes next time)
1 tablespoon olive oil

After thawing the meat, we let it marinate for about 2 hours in the fridge.

Then, we stuck it into a 400 F oven for just over 20 minutes, and the meat came out slightly more rare than medium rare. The entire time we were preparing the meat, J let out some sounds of distress. I guess I sympathize. When I was trying to figure out how to cook the kangaroo, I read somewhere that kangaroos have to be left wild. Apparently they can't be farmed because herding them causes them to keel over and die from fear. That piece of knowledge seemed rather depressing.

In the end the marinade and the cooking method both worked out. We had some braised swiss chard and steamed rice for side dishes; the chard was a particularly good choice since it's earthy flavor really stood up to the taste of the kangaroo. The truth is, both J and I sat looking at our plates in silence for a long time before we worked up the nerve to try it. I was terrified it was actually going to taste like liver.

Kangaroo, it turns out, has a texture similar to most red meats. J's roommate and her boyfriend said it was more tender and juicier than beef (though that might have been more of the cooking method than the truth of kangaroo). Even though it was extremely lean, it wasn't very chewy; I also tried a small piece that had fallen off the main loin and ended up cooking faster, but that wasn't especially chewy either. The taste is definitely gamy, and somewhat musky. Oddly, it did remind me vaguely of liver, although that might have been because J kept insisting it looked like liver earlier. It definitely didn't taste like anything I've ever had before; you'll have to try it for yourself to know for sure.




Overall, it wasn't unpleasant, and I'm glad we ended up trying it. Next time, I'd like to try a marinade that compensated a little more for the gaminess of the meat. I'd eat kangaroo again, but it wouldn't be my first choice on the menu.