Ren, can I have the Kangaroo Taco recipe?
-kyrathaba
I'll take a picture & post it next time. We usually have it once every week or two.
So, let's hop on that recipe~!
Ingredients:
- Kangaroo
- Water
- Taco seasoning
- Avocado
- Sour cream
- Bell peppers (green, red, yellow, whatever)
- Onions (yellow and red are nice)
- Coriander
- Iceberg lettuce
- Tomato
Take 500 grams of kangaroo mince (hamburger) and put it in the fry pan. Do NOT turn on the heat yet. Add the taco seasoning (1 package) and about 200 ml of water (this is the secret ingredient to wicked amazing taco meat - sounds dumb, but it works) on top. Next, mix the water, meat, and seasoning all together. Make sure to chop the meat up and kneed it all together (this is particularly important for beef). Now, turn on the heat to medium. Do NOT turn it on high as high heat destroys nutritional value, and doesn't cook nearly as nice. Ideally, keep the heat as low as possible. It takes longer, but it's worth it. Stir while cooking until the water is half to mostly gone. This is a matter of taste, and more water simply makes it juicier. Don't overcook it and make it dry though.
Kangaroo is very different from beef though. It's much leaner and softer. It takes a bit more time to kneed the meat and water together compared to beef, which tends to soak up the water much easier. The freaky thing is that it's leaner, organic, healthier, and half the price of beef! I really see no reason to buy beef at all anymore since I finally discovered just how great kangaroo is. Healthier and half the price? And it's nicer meat to eat? Very tender!
I'll also sometimes use a few twists of fresh black pepper, or use some black pepper essential oil. (The black pepper essential oil I use is therapeutic grade (Young Living), and not just a nice smell. These kinds of oils can be used in cooking, but I wouldn't use some no-name brand as many cut their oils and god knows what's in it -- they're not meant for eating, etc.) Black pepper cuts down on the smell of the meat, which is needed more for beef, but kangaroo has its own smell too. (In pasta sauce, I use oregano or basil essential oil as well.) Oh, if you do use essential oil, it's measured in drops - like 1, 2, 3. Not much at all.
I tried putting in a few drops of lime juice the other night -- it worked really well! Not a lot, but just enough to blend in and give the meat a bit more zest. (I'm continually experimenting.)
That lasts for 2 meals for 2 people. If we don't have tacos the next night, the meat is good for pasta sauce.
For the taco seasoning, check the packages when you buy them. Some are 1/4 or 1/3 sugar! The ones we use are 5% (4.7% actually) and sometimes 10% sugar. I've never seen any with less sugar than 4.7%. I still need to learn how to make this myself. Same goes for taco sauce.
For the rest, I chop up an avocado and put that in a bowl. Probably around 150 grams of sour cream in another bowl. These generally last for 1 meal. You can really do a lot more here though. My wife likes them separate, so I don't go all out and make guacamole by mixing the two and seasoning them.
On the veggie side, coriander (cilantro), green & red bell peppers (capsicum), 1 small onion (yellow/cooking), 1 small red salad onion (or other sweet onion), 2~4 leaves of iceberg lettuce, 1 medium sized tomato - all diced either finely or coarsely to taste - we generally go with a medium dice. For the lettuce, I chop it into diamonds - across the grain, then diagonally - this makes it easier to put on the tacos. Chopping it in thin strands doesn't quite work as well, but whatever works for you. For the coriander, I like to chop it up stems and all, and a bit finer as it's so leafy that you kind of need it to be a bit finer to easily put it in your taco.
We're using pickled jalapenos as my wife doesn't really like hot food all that much, and fresh ones are a bit hot for her. I like fresh jalapenos, but... If you want to "cool down" fresh jalapenos, just take the seeds out. Jalapenos aren't really all that hot compared to some other peppers.
Also, my wife isn't all that keen on cheese, so we don't use any. Most people would have cheese, and probably cheddar or colby.
We just buy shells though. Sometimes I get wraps as well as I like them, but often can't eat the whole package before they go stale. I like the stand up shells as they are easier to deal stuff, and you can put more in there!
For taco sauce, we're using store bought. I still need to learn how to make taco sauce and how to preserve it well enough as we can't go through a gallon of the stuff all that quickly between the two of us.
If we don't have tacos as left-overs, I throw out the lettuce and use the rest in pasta sauce. There, it's just meat, veggies, a bottle of (usually organic) pasta sauce, a bottle of passatta (tomato sauce), etc. etc. Slow cooked. It's always better the second day though. The first day is fine, but the second day the flavours have blended much better and it tastes MUCH better.
We tend to eat tacos a lot as it is one of the few things that I can competently cook (at the sound of being immodest, I do a good job with tacos - which can't be said for some other things). It's mostly just chopping veggies, which is pretty hard to screw up.
