Marsupial Anyone?

While in school and finishing up my degree, I developed a fixation with BBC World News. Whenever I was in needed of source material to help me procrastinate from mountainous readings or tedious papers, I would surf the British news site in hopes of unearthing one of their random and offbeat stories that usually involved some kind of funny looking animal.


There was the story about a pack of flesh-eating squirrels off the cost of Russia who had viciously attacked and eaten a dog due, allegedly, to a recent pine cone shortage.


Then there was the story about roaches acquiring pet status in Australia – apparently the little buggers are popular because “the kids can play with them without getting hurt” Ah, what?!?



Who on earth covers these stories I would wonder while laughing with amazement. When China banned citizens from naming their children “Stinky Dog,” BBC World News was there (makes you wonder, was there really a surplus of people naming their children Stinky Dog?) When a woman in Sussex swallowed her cell-phone while fighting with her boyfriend, BBC World News was on the job.

As I rushed from school to my restaurant job, and from my restaurant job back to school I would often imagine myself traveling the world in search of new, unconventional, and completely trivial stories involving animals, insects, and incredibly stupid human beings. Was it possible that, one day, I too could be employed by BBC to cover wacky and unusual stories?

It was around this time that I was refining my paltry avocation; zeroing in on articles involving solely marsupials, of which there were surprisingly many. There were stories featuring flesh-eating marsupials, marsupials scared of there own noise, and, get this, marsupial recipes. A lover of Thai food, one recipe in particular caught my eye and sparked my interest, the question is, where can you buy some good Kangaroo around here?

Thai style salad of kangaroo and peanuts with lime

Ingredients
6 limes
2 tsp coconut-palm sugar (or demerara sugar)
1⁄2 red chili, seeded and finely chopped
1⁄2 tsp fish sauce
1⁄2 tsp tamari paste
1 tbsp vegetable oil
14oz kangaroo fillets, trimmed and cut into 6 equal strips
2 tsp rice, dry-roasted in the oven or in a frying pan until golden
4 shallots, finely sliced
2oz fresh coriander, chopped
1oz fresh mint, chopped
3oz roasted peanuts, coarsely ground

• Method
• To make the dressing, grate the zest of three limes, and squeeze the juice from all six.
• Mix with the sugar, chili, fish sauce and tamari until the sugar has dissolved.
• To cook the kangaroo, put the vegetable oil in a frying pan on a high heat and sear the kangaroo strips for 2-3 minutes, taking care not to over-cook.
• Remove from the pan and leave to rest in a warm place for 2 minutes. Finally, slice the kangaroo strips thinly and put in a mixing bowl with the dressing, roasted rice, shallots, herbs and peanuts. Mix well, and serve on six plates.

Recipe by Peter Gordon
from Fresh Food

Photos taken from original stories for which the links are provided