Kangaroo meat – how to cook it?

One of our must-do things during our short visit to Australia was to taste kangaroo meat. Restaurants are so expensive in this country that you automatically think of cooking on your own, which is obvious especially if you have a travel companion who is a passionate chef! Contrary to a popular opinion about kangaroo meat being the cheapest kind of meat to buy in Australia, we’ve found out that chicken meat is in fact the cheapest (for 1kg of chicken meat you’ll pay 8-9AUD / 6USD while 0,5kg of kangaroo meat costs the same or a bit more up to 10AUD /8USD). Where and how did we prepare the kangaroo meat taking into account that we were constantly moving from one place to the other in our small Kia, where we were also staying overnight? You will find all the info here below.

In Australia there are lots of places such as picnic areas and parking lots with barbecue available outdoors for free. There are points where you can make a fireplace too (but this is less common). Our first time with kangaroo meat was in a parking lot in Hyden close to the famous Wave Rock, where we used the barbecue to grill meat, carrots, zucchini and make some toasts (the cost: 1kg of carrots: 1AUD /0,70USD, 1 zucchini – 0,70AUD /0,40USD, bread: 2,50AUD / 2USD). 500g of marinated kangaroo meat for 10AUD/7,50USD gave us 2 meals for 2 people. We bought all the food at Woolworth’s which seemed to be the cheapest and well-equipped supermarket. Of course, you could buy minced kangaroo meat there for a bit less, but it was the typical burger meat and needed seasoning and oil, which would result more expensive as a whole.

Going back to how we cooked kangaroo meat: first we threw chopped vegetables on a barbecue, then Michał using our backpacker-style Swiss army knife cut the meat into pieces and simply placed them on the barbecue next to the vegetables. He left the meat for cooking on one side for 3 minutes, then repeated that on its other side and that was it! We put a few slices of bread on the grill as well to let them get browner.

As for the length of cooking time, it all depends on your preferences. Remember that the longer you fry it, the harder the meat gets. It’s recommendable not to make it typically ”well-done”, because then you will not be able to munch it. Kangaroo meat is juicy, lean, it contains virtually no fat and is slightly sweet in taste. Besides, it is considered one of the healthiest kinds of meat in Australia, providing the organism with a lot of proteins and minerals, and protecting against cancer and atherosclerosis, as ir contains CLA fatty acids.

For us it was an absolute hit cooking kangaroo over a campfire (while we stopped near Bunbury in one of popular picnic areas) after putting it on thin twigs along with vegetables. You can put the skewers on fire embers and turn the ”sticks” from time to time during 5 minutes! The taste of the meat itself prepared over the campfire is quite different  from the one prepared on the barbecue. The meat gets smoked a little bit which gives it a characteristic smoky flavour. It also seems to be somewhat softer from the one cooked on the barbecue!

We had a ‘blessing in disguise’ ‘that we came across bad weather as at night the temperature dropped down to 12-14 degrees, so we did not have to worry specifically that the meat would not endure the temperature. However, if you are’t that ”lucky” and you face a typical summer weather, no worries, 500g of kangaroo meat is enough for 2 meals for 2 people so you will be able to prepare it in 1 day for lunch and dinner and it will get cooled thanks to air-conditioning in the car while driving 🙂 To sum up cost of such a meal, you should spend more or less 3-3,50AUD/2,25USD per person:) That would be scary to think how much you’d have to pay for the kangaroo meat in a restaurant considering the fact that a typical chicken salad costs there about 25AUD / 19USD!

You will get some more tips on how to eat at a reasonable price in Australia in our next post, in which we will describe in detail our 8-day budget trip through South-West Australia! Enjoy the reading!