Australia: Colonial Goose with Fig & Macadamia Nut Stuffing & Rozella Glaze, Roast Potatoes & Gravy, & Beer Damper

My home country of Australia is officially known as the Commonwealth of Australia. My southern ocean Island home country includes the mainland Australian Island Continent, the Island of Tasmania,  the Torres Strait Islands & numerous smaller islands. The mainland of Australia is both the smallest Continent & the largest island in the World. Australia is also  the largest country in Oceania & the sixth largest country in the World. Our northern neighbours include Papua & New Guinea, Indonesia & Timor-Leste. New Zealand sits to our south east & The Solomon Islands are in our north east. South of Australia is the South Pole Continent of Antarctica.

Australia is home the oldest surviving food tradition in the World yet  it is viewed by many as an emerging food culture.The irony is that Australian Cuisine is both the oldest & the newest food culture in the World, having four key stages that embrace our Indigenous Food  traditions & adapts the foods of Colonialism, Multiculturalism & Globalisation to bring us up to the current  21^st Century fusion cuisine.

The cuisine of Indigenous  Australians is an extremely diverse, innovative & unique bundle of food traditions which are arguably the oldest surviving food traditions in the World dating back 60,000 years! Developed & adapted by the land’s first people to use diverse & sometimes challenging ingredients from the natural environment, the Indigenous cuisine of Australia is known by the unassuming name of ‘bush tucker’. Based on traditions of hunting & gathering  local & seasonal foods such as Kangaroo, shellfish & yams, that are baked in hot campfire coals this fresh food cuisine is typically low in fat & low-impact on the environment.

British Colonisation of Australia in 1788 brought new food traditions to the Island Continent, however, food shortages for the new Australians encouraged resourcefulness & bush tucker ingredients  such as the Rosella (native Hibiscus), were adapted to meet the needs of hungry Colonists. From 1788 until the 1940s Australian dinner tables were dominated by British & Irish Colonial food traditions focused around agricultural products of beef, sheep, dairy & wheat. The Sunday roast of meat & potatoes became a tradition as did a continuing love for fresh seafood, shellfish & also meat cooked over hot coals in the form of the much loved BBQ.

After 1945  the cuisine of Australia blossomed in diverse ways  with post Second World War multicultural immigration bringing new flavours, cooking methods & ingredients into the mix, especially those of Europe, the Mediterranean & East Asia. More recently it could be said that the Modern Australian Cuisine of  the 21^st Century has been influenced by globalisation to have a renewed interest in local, organic & bush food ingredients like Kangaroo, Davidson Plums & Finger limes, to produce a contemporary fusion cuisine that adapts all the traditions of the past into a fresh healthy cuisine.  Having said all that Australians love simple good food; Aussies still love to cook outdoors & we still love our BBQ.

Our Australian Menu included:

Colonial Goose with Fig & Macadamia Nut Stuffing & Rosella Glaze

Roast Potatoes & Gravy

& 
Beer Damper

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COLONIAL GOOSE

Colonial Goose is actually a boned stuffed leg of lamb. The dish & its name originate from the early days of European occupation in Australia when poultry was scarce but sheep were cheap & all over the country. Colonial housewives wanted to cook something for Christmas that was similar to the fare served back in the British Isles on a festive table, so they disguised their staple food to look like a roasted & stuffed goose (the shank bone sticking out was supposed to be the ‘goose’s’ neck). I have heard that this dish was also popular in colonial New Zealand for similar reasons. I first cook this dish in 1983 as part of a  Christmas Menu @ a Sydney Restaurant called 73 York Street.

Ingredients: 

·      1 boned leg of lamb with the shank left in

·      sprig rosemary

·      I cup cook rice

·      6 Dried Figs (diced)

·      35 gm mixed dried fruits – I used cranberries, blueberries & flame raisins

·      50 gm Macadamia Nuts (chopped)

·      2 nips brandy

·      tsp unsalted butter

·      salt & pepper

·      2 tbs olive oil

·      mirepoix  of vegetables (2 carrots, 2 sticks celery &  1 onion chopped up in 2cm cubes)

·      2 tbs Rosella (Native Hibiscus) jam

·      1 kg new potatoes ( cut in half, skin left on)

Method:

1.    Pre-heat the oven to 230°C (450°F)

2.    To make the seasoning put figs & dried fruit in a ceramic bowl, add brandy & butter, cover & microwave for about 1 minute, then let stand for about 20 mins, stirring now & then, until fruit has plumped & absorbed liquid.

3.    Mix fruit with cook rice, Macadamia nuts & season with salt & pepper

4.    Open out the boned leg & rub with the fresh rosemary.

5.    Sprinkle with salt and pepper and spread the stuffing over it.

6.    Roll it up  & tie with baking string.

7.    Heat a baking dish on top of the stove with olive oil & sprinkle of salt to stop the meat sticking to the pan then add the Goose & sear the meat on all sides

8.    Place lamb in oven & roast for 15 minutes

9.    Take the lamb back out of the oven & reduce the oven heat to 180

10.  Remove meat from baking tray, lay a vegetable bed of the mirepoix into the tray, put lamb on top & baste with the Rosella Jam

11. Take a large piece of aluminium foil, coast it with oil or cooking spray & place loosely over the meat to prevent burning during the cooking process

12. Put the tray back in the oven and continue cooking allowing 30 minutes for each 500gm of meat ( probably about 2 hours), turning the Goose every half hour & basting with the Rosella Jam each time you turn it over .

13. When the meat has one hour to go take it out of the oven & place the potatoes cut side down around the meat

This recipe is a Q-Zine Original recipe 

GRAVY

Ingredients: 

·      1 cup Chicken Stock

·      I cup Bef Stock

·      50 gm Butter

·      50 gn Plain Flour

·      2 pinch salt

·      1 pinch Finely ground White Pepper

·      Splash Worcestershire Sauce

·      2 tbs Rosella Jam

·      I tbs Red Wine

Method:

1.    Take a medium sized pot with a good solid bottom. Place it on the stove on medium heat & add the butter

2.    When the butter melts & just starts to bubble add the flour stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the flour & butter & combined

3.    Turn the heat to low & keep stirring the flour & butter with a wooden spoon  until the ingredients take on a sand like consistency (this is called a Roux. It forms the basis of the thickening for your sauce)

4.    Be careful not to burn the Roux or your sauce will taste burnt. If necessary remove the pot from the heat for a few minutes to let the Roux cool down if you see it beginning to go brown.

5.    When the Roux is ‘cooked’ (looks like sand) the flour will be cooked enough to allow other ingredients to be added

6.    Keeping the pot on a low/medium heat begin stirring in the stock little by little so that each time you add some stock it is completely mixed into the roux & no lumps are appearing. This is important as once lumps form in the gravy it is very hard to get them out

7.    Once you begin to see lumps appearing swap your wooden spoon for a whisk & whisk the gravy briskly until it is smooth & all the stock in into the sauce.

8.    Now the Gravy must cook & have the seasoning adjusted. Go back to stirring with the wooden spoon & gradually add the other ingredients. Again if there are lumps go back to the whisk

9.    This may seem tedious swapping between the wooden spoon & metal whisk but from a culinary point of view too much metal action inside a metal pot will taint your sauce with a metallic flavour which is undesirable. The wooden spoon is neutral in flavour & does not interact with the metal pot so it is always preferred in this type of sauce preparation

10. Once you have a smooth sauce turn the heat down to very low & let the sauce just bubble, stirring often with the wooden spoon for about 10 minutes so that it thickens & builds rich flavour.

11. At this point taste the sauce & decide if you need to adjust the seasoning by adding more salt or pepper.

12. Ideally when the sauce is ready you will pour it into sauce jugs & serve.

13. If you have made the sauce earlier & want to re-heat it for serving you should remove the pot from heat then cover the top of the sauce with a piece of buttered cooking paper to stop the sauce from developing a skin. This way you should be able to just re-heat. If it has become a little thick when cooled then add a little water & whisk or stir until smooth as it is re-heating (the same rule of spoon & whisk apply here

NOTE: If we had cooked a real Goose it would be traditional to make the Gravy in the baking dish that the bird had been roasted in; we would have put the pan on the top of the stove on a medium to low heat, added the flour to the pan & mixed it with the fat dripping, meat juices & crisp bits at the bottom of the pan with a bit of water to make a delicious poultry flavoured sauce. This is not a great idea when making Gravy to go with roast Lamb as the fat dripping from Lamb is too strong in smell & flavour to make a nice sauce. So as a way of responding to that, this recipe uses both beef & chicken stock & is cooked in a pot in a similar way to a French Brown Sauce.

This recipe is a Q-Zine Original recipe 

BEER DAMPER

Ingredients: 

Makes 1 loaf

·      3¾ cups self-raising flour

·      1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

·      1½ tsp finely ground sea salt

·      2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

·      375ml  beer (I used I small bottle of James Boag's Premium Lager as it has a fragrance of hops & malt creating similar aroma to Colonial Beers)

Method:

1.    Preheat oven to 180°C

2.    Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large bowl

3.    Now add the butter and rub it into the flour with fingertips until just combined & has texture of breadcrumbs.

4.    Pour in the beer  mixing very gently with a pastry scrapper (or wooden spoon) until it forms a dough. Do not over mix or your damper will be tough

5.    Form dough into a loaf shape, then place on a greased baking tray

6.    Bake for 30 minutes in the pre-heated oven, until damper deep-golden

7.    Cool on a wire rack then serve on a board with butter

A Q-Zine recipe adapted from an original found at:

http://www.fast-ed.com.au/beer-damper/