Kangaroo and Beer Pie with Damper Pastry

JustJanS's Note:

This was in our Age Sunday supplement. I'm posting it in honour of Australia Day, but have to admit I personally couldn't eat kangaroo meat and would make it with lamb or beef! Prep time includes chill time.

• Total Time: 3 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 55 mins
• Cook Time: 2 hrs 15 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• salt and pepper
• 800 g kangaroo steak, cut into 2 cm cubes
• olive oil
• 250 g button mushrooms, halved
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 1/4 cups beer (like Guinness)
• 1 cup reduced beef stock
• 2 tablespoons fresh marjoram, chopped

DAMPER PASTRY

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 50 g butter
• 1 cup milk

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C.
2. To make the damper pastry, combine flour baking powder and salt, then rub in the butter by hand.
3. Or place flour, baking powder and salt in your food processor and pulse to sift, then add the butter, and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
4. Add milk and mix (either by hand or in the processor) until the dough leaves the side of the bowl.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes.
6. Meanwhile season the flour with salt and pepper and toss the kangaroo cubes gently to coat with the flour.
7. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and brown the meat in batches, remove and set aside.
8. Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook for 2 minutes.
9. Add the meat, beer and stock and bring to the boil.
10. Reduce heat, half cover pan and simmer for 90 minutes.
11. Set aside to cool.
12. Adjust seasoning, stir in the marjoram and transfer mixture to a pie dish or tin.
13. Roll out damper pastry until 4mm thick and place over meat to form a secure lid.
14. Press pastry edges down with fingertips to secure and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
15. Pierce pastry with a knife four times then bake pie for 25-30 minutes until damper crust is golden brown.

Reviews

[Peter J]

Now this was a pie! Only change I made was I didn't have beef stock so instead used a cup of chicken stock with a tablespoon of vegemite. I used 'roo meat but I think if using any other sort of meat it would be important to use nice lean meat not any fatty cuts. For the beer I used Cascade Pale Ale and served with the same. The reduction of the sauce gave it a great gravy-like consistency and it really was a very tasty and satisfying meal. Instructions were great although you probably don't really need to preheat the oven until about step 14 ;-). This makes such a nice and refreshing change from pastry based pies.

[Cas]

My kids LOVED this recipe - kangaroo included. I had to omit the beer because they are celiac, and had to do a gluten-free damper, but it worked out better than I expected. Also used the pastry recipe to do meat pies (can do little ones in muffin tin) with mince meat, grated veges and tomato sauce! Too easy