How (Not) to Cook Kangaroo, Why (Not) to Cook Goat

People, I don't cook meat.

Well, except for that one time when I was in Australia's Northern Territory, staying in the kitschy and overpriced Ayers Rock Resort located near Uluru, Australia's infamous Red Centre. I stayed in a dorm room with 25 bunk beds--so, 50 people total--in the Outback Pioneer Lodge and Hotel arm of the compound.

Our part of the resort (the chintzy yet still overpriced part) was a well-intentioned "rustic and rowdy" destination (the website calls it "authentic," but please--what's authentic about sharing a room with 49 dirty travelers?). That meant that we got the outdoor bar and grill, bored families and nomadic recent college grads while the Sails in the Desert across the road got the 5-star restaurant, spa and heat and air conditioning. (Note: The Outback gets cold at night.)

The grill on the premises was not your typical American bar-and-grill. The Outback BBQ is a do-it-yourself eatery. Set up with 10 individual grilling stations, the Outback sells you the raw meat of your choosing (with regional favorites like kangaroo, emu and alligator) and leaves it up to you to cook it, sink-or-swim style, shoulder-to-shoulder with your dusty world-traveling neighbor in the middle of outback Australia nowhere. I can't imagine that it would be legal in the U.S. to sell raw meat to restaurant patrons and then leave it up to them to cook something safely edible--but few things in Australia are ordinary by most world standards.

I don't cook meat. But I recognized that I had three once-in-a-lifetime opportunities in front of me at the Outback BBQ with its Eric Clapton cover band goading me on in the background: one, an opportunity to barbecue in the land of all-things-barbecue; two, an opportunity to eat kangaroo meat in the land of kangaroos and other odd, unevolved marsupials (!!); and, three, the opportunity to barbecue my own marsupial meat in the land of all-things-barbecue. I flashed forward to an image of myself tucked safely back in my San Francisco home after two weeks on that red island continent, literally kicking myself for not indulging in a uniquely Australian BBQ experience--I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't do it. I also suspected that I'd have a good story with the whole public-health-violation premise of the place.

So I bought two kangaroo skewers from the bored Aussies taking a break from Uni at the meat stand and tentatively approached an open grill. Most of my fellow grillers were in pairs or in threes, confidently grilling various meats and poultries, sharing watery Australian beers; I was alone and completely unversed in meats and barbecues. The pierced cubes of kangaroo on my plate were a throbbing red color and looked very, very raw. I observed my neighbors for a second and lined my skewers up on the grill like they did. I feigned comfort and confidence. What? Oh, this is nothing, I imagined saying to the two backpackers from Japan on my right, instructively pointing my tongs up and around at every other word. Where I'm from, we do this kind of grilling all the time. I noticed how the other grillers turned their skewers every few minutes. I turned mine once. A minute later I turned them a second time. I noticed after the second turn that my skewers were getting brown and crispy--oh God, I thought, how will I know if they're done? What if they're overcooked? How will I know?! I was given no instructions from the bored Aussies at the meat stand, and I was starting to work myself into a panic, envisioning my meat bursting into flames and singing my and my neighbors' eyebrows. The other grillers worked effortlessly. I started to sweat from the strain of containing my panic and inexperience. I flipped again. Brown. And again. Crispy. I poked at the meat. Nothing oozed from it, so it couldn't have been raw--of course, it's overcooked! I overcooked it! It's time! It's time!! I snatched the skewers off the grill, smacked them onto my plate and headed for the salad bar.

The reality was that the skewers were essentially raw with a thin coating of cooked on the outside. It had only been about 10 minutes between the time I bought the meat to when I reached the salad bar. Less than ten minutes is not long enough to cook kangaroo, friends. I felt ashamed at my idiocy and couldn't bear the thought of the humiliation I'd feel going back to my grilling station with a plate of bloodied salad dotted with sad cubes of two-thirds-raw kangaroo. Australians are crazy about meat. They'd have a field day with me and my pathetic American faux vegetarianism. So I ate as much as I could, working around the rawest bits, praying I wouldn't get violently ill with no health insurance in a country 10,000 miles away from home.



(Incidentally, a coworker of mine later told me about her first experience eating kangaroo--a plate of kangaroo carpaccio at an Australian restaurant in New York City.)

Although I don't cook meat, I've decided to give it another go for the holidays this year. I'm staying in San Francisco with girlfriend instead of going back to Michigan this year, and I want to make us a nice, cozy traditional holiday meal. Traditional means meat to me (hey, I'm from the Midwest!). However, I have no real grasp of how meats are different from each other (for example, the flavor difference between a Fillet Mignon and T-bone steak does not quickly come to me), so I relied on the awesome meat counter staff at Bi-Rite to help me out.

I don't know how to cook meat, I explained to them, except for a disastrous experience with kangaroo and a barbecue in Australia once.

They recommended lamb or goat. Girlfriend doesn't like lamb--this I was sure of. I was intrigued by the goat recommendation, though. I disregarded the quick blip of memory that flashed across my brain of girlfriend vehemently turning down a sample of goat butter at New Seasons--pshaw, Katherine, goat butter isn't the same thing as goat meat! The meat people then told me more. How to roast it, season it, make it tasty. They were directions I could follow and picture in my head, so I got on board. They wrapped up a shoulder for me. I turned from the counter.

No, girlfriend really doesn't like goat, my memory chided me. Don't you remember how she vehemently turned down that goat butter, and then told you how much she doesn't like goat? No, you lie! I hissed back. Oh...no. I remembered now. I texted her hoping she'd be into it anyway and got this back:

Girlfriend: I don't like goat!

This is why I don't cook meat! I can't do it right! Traditional was a stupid idea! I should just stick with what I know! Tofu stir-fry! Near tears in the wine aisle, I turned back to the meat people.

Girlfriend doesn't like goat, I said sheepishly [no pun intended].

They were helpful and took the wrapped-up shoulder from me. They pointed out other options. I could feel my Capacity for Overwhelmedness reach Full, and finally got down to business and straight-up asked the meat person which option I was more likely to mess up: the pork tenderloin or the prime rib.

I'm pretty sure the prime rib is more mess-up-able, but she convinced me to get it anyway (It was on sale! It was raised humanely! It sounds fancier!). I could tell you next about how, when I got home, I panicked about what to do with the slab of raw meat on my counter (Freeze or refrigerate? Remove from the package or keep it there? Does this mean I have to touch it??), but I think this is enough to help you understand how inept I am at meat.

I now have prime rib chillin' in my freezer and four days to figure out if I'm capable of preparing it...


--

By the way, if you're ever in Australia, make Uluru a stop--it will blow your mind, and you can then say you've been to the Australian outback. More photos behind the image:

Go Green(s): Collard Greens, Kale, and Dino Kale (Lacinato Kale)

Oh my goodness, I love cooking greens. Collard greens, beet greens, spinach. And kale. Especially kale. Especially dinosaur kale, otherwise known as lacinato kale. Mmm. Ahh. Ooh. So delicious.

And for some reason unbeknowist to me until just a moment ago, I go gaga for greens in the winter. My Good Book, otherwise known as the Field Guide to Produce, tells me that

"many of these greens are at their best in winter months, and are all high in vitamin A."

So that totally explains it. I fall for the greens in the winter because I, deep inside, recognize that they're more delicious during the months when the days are unacceptably short and the temperature unacceptably cold. And maybe my body has a thing (wink wink) for the A vitamin.

But back to the dino kale. I love dinosaur kale. It's so weird-looking: when you see it, the light bulb goes on and the "dino" part of the name makes crystal-clear sense. (Dino kale, if you've never seen it, is a dark, foresty, prehistoric green; it's tough as nails, long and skinny, and has a bubbly, fossil-like texture. I cook it until it's neither soft nor crunchy--that beautiful in-between veggie al dente spot--and it tastes like you're eating the earth. You know, like you're eating something that's close to the dirt and packed with things your body needs and loves and celebrates. Beets and other yummy, close-to-or-in-the-ground vegetables fall in a similar category for me.)

I'm sure my first encounter with dino kale occurred in a Whole Foods in Chicago, where I lived for two years right after college (I lived in Chicago, not the Whole Foods, although I bet I would have liked Chicago better if I lived in the latter). A friend of mine posted pictures of a delicious miso soup she had made on her blog. To the broth she had added collard greens that looked like ticker-tape from a jungle. I believe at this time I was vegan, so both the miso soup (vegan!) and the idea of adding greens to my diet (also vegan, and jam-packed with vitamins!) were instant winners.

I dabbled in collards first before moving on to traditional kale, mostly because I'd heard of collards before and wanted to take it slow and familiar. (Side note: I've never cooked my greens with bacon fat in the traditional Southern style. Recently I ordered greens from 2223 here in San Francisco, and freaked out a little when I felt the grease-coated greens sliding down my throat.) I liked the salad-y feel of cooked kale in my mouth, but otherwise found it bland and then started to resent having to wrangle it into a plastic produce bag at the store, showering myself and all shoppers within a five-foot radius with icy cold produce water from its folded and frilly leaves. Behold, then, the dino kale, wrapped neatly and patiently in bunches of verdant, pebbly green. Because I am that woman at the corner produce store (or at the Midwest Whole Foods) who digs deep for the freshest-smelling, brightest-colored veggies, my attraction to dino kale was almost magnetic. I loved how the leaves wasn't flat and texturally boring like collards, and I loved that it was sweeter and less poofy than traditional kale. Oh, and the name. I loved the name.

I'm a minimalist when it comes to cooking fresh veggies. Anything to make the core, earthy flavors shine. Here's what I do for dino kale.

Delicious Dino Kale



1 bunch of dino kale, washed, stemmed and cut into ribbon-like pieces
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Pepper to taste
Vegetable stock or broth (optional)
Low-sodium tamari to taste

Add olive oil to a large pan over medium high heat. When pan starts to warm, add the kale ribbons in batches (kale will cook down, just be patient!). Stir, stir, stir to cook the kale down. When kale starts to get soft, add garlic. (Note: I'm a BIG fan of raw garlic, so I like to add my garlic a little later in the game so that it keeps that acrid heat that I find so wonderfully characteristic of raw garlic. Feel free to add the garlic with the olive oil at the beginning, before you pop the kale in, if you like your garlic more mellow.) Add pepper to greens to taste. Turn heat down to medium.

To prevent the greens from losing moisture and drying out or burning, add a bit of vegetable stock to keep the greens simmering (you can also just use water). Cook until greens are at your desired tenderness, adding tamari to taste about two to three minutes before you remove the greens from heat and serve.

Tonight I toasted some sesame seeds and added them to my greens as a garnish. It was really tasty--I'd recommend it.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies With Peppermint

Or, Chocolate Chip and Peppermint Oatmeal Cookies

1 c all-purpose flour
3/4 c whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/4 c packed brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
1/2 c granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp peppermint flavor (Yes, flavor. That's what the bottle I got says. "Flavor" feels a little misleading, though, since the all-of two ingredients are 1. sunflower oil; and 2. peppermint oil. This is basically peppermint oil, people.)

2 1/2 c quick oats
2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375.

Whisk flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a small bowl. Beat brown sugar, butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs, vanilla and peppermint. Mix in flour mixture. Mix in oats and chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 10 to 13 minutes. Cool on baking sheets, then move to wire racks to cool completely.

***

Okay, here's the story about how this all got started and how it all went down. First of all, I've got cookies on the brain. Next weekend girlfriend is coming into town and roommate is joining us for an all-afternoon, jam-packed Christmas cookie-Athon here at the Dirty Sanchez, our apartment.

But this weekend has been a lonely one for me. Roommate is out of town and I'm getting over the nastiest cold in recent Katherine history. I've spent a lot of time thinking about stuff. With cookies already on the brain at that. I hopped on GChat to catch up with my old friend Jess, no intentions of getting all culinary after just cleaning up from the sushi I made for dinner. Jess happened to mention that she was afoot in her kitchen baking cinnamon peanut butter cookie bars. With absolutely nothing else to do on a Saturday night (except read The Red Tent, but I'm not quite in the mood to overdose on sisterhood tonight), and with cookies on the brain and creativity born out of boredom, I got inspired to dabble in a half-batch of cookies as a precursor to next week's -Athon.

It has to be peppermint, I said. This is the Christmas season, after all.

Oh, and it has to be good.

As usual, Cookthink started putting ingredients against my inspiration. Semi-sweet chocolate chips and peppermint--the combination is fail-proof! But dare I try oatmeal, too?

With Bing Crosby crooning Christmas tunes in the background (thanks, Pandora!), I got to work mangling an existing oatmeal chocolate chip recipe. Flours, soda, salt. Whisk. (I actually didn't think about the cinnamon until later; more on that below.) I don't have a mixer here at the Dirty Sanchez, but I was somewhat (naively) confident that my whisk could successfully apply to the "beat brown sugar and butter" part.

Wrong. Chunks of room-temperature butter wrapped in brown and granulated sugar quickly clogged my tiny wire whisk. I shook them free. No avail. I poked and prodded at them with a knife, scraping residue on the side of the bowl. I then proceeded to pound the mixture with the side of the whisk (not sure what I was trying to accomplish with that one)--same result.

Idiot! I said to myself. You could be using roommate's IMMERSION BLENDER right now, and this would be so much easier!

(Note: I recently discovered the beauty and grace that is the IMMERSION BLENDER. Soups, chopped nuts, yogurt smoothies; I once wondered what it couldn't do. Until tonight.)

Okay, an IMMERSION BLENDER is, like a whisk, NOT A GOOD SUBSTITUTE FOR A MIXER.

I held roommate's IMMERSION BLENDER tight and plunged it into a still-intact chunk of room-temperature butter. The blade made a quick muffled phwahm-phwahm-phwahm sound, and then came clean. But no mixing and churning was happening. In fact, all of the butter was now stuck up inside the blender, packed above the small blade. A little bit of it oozed out the sides, but it was otherwise clear this game was over.

And there was no way to get the butter out from its packed-tight place above the blade except to use my fingers.

By now my hands are covered in the leftovers of a stick of butter and I can't wash them clean. I'm scrubbing and wiping and scrubbing. And my sugar and butter mixture is still, well, not a mixture. I know I can't get through this on Bing Crosby alone. I turn to Mannheim Steamroller. And I turn to my old friend Wooden Spoon who, yet again, bails me out of this greasy confectionery disaster.

Anyway, like I said, I didn't think about the cinnamon until after the first batch of cookies went into the oven. But I think it's a good idea to use it. It keeps the cool breath of the peppermint in check so that it doesn't run away with all of the glory without no guts (the chocolate and oats are super-good!).

And the oatmeal is super-important for texture, chewiness and sugar mitigation. I tried a corner of a cookie that was no-oats and it was a bit too straightforward--high on the sugary, pepperminty flavor train, low on overall interestingness. In other words, the oatmeal gives your pancreas a bit of a break while keeping the act of cookie-eating lively and interesting.



So, I'm a big fan of these cookies. If my camera didn't run out of battery life right after I took the first five pictures, I would post photos of them for you. I could eat them all night. They're so good they make me weep. And you should know that I never weep.

P.S. I should mention that Jess's attempt at the Christmasy pastry failed miserably. Her cinnamon peanut butter cookie bars turned out "the consistency of peanut butter." "I've got a lake of [peanut butter] in my kitchen right now," she said.

P.P.S. I've had three of these cookies already. I definitely like the cinnamon batch better. And, heck, these cookies are even good cold. (But they're really good warm and right-out-of-the-oven gooey.)