EAT THE WORLD: AUSTRALIA
Cooking the National Dish of Australia
"Shrimp on the barbie". You know that in Australia they don't call it shrimp? It's called prawns - what we call it in South Africa too. The whole "shrimp on the barbie" phrase was coined in relation to some ancient movie about an American in Australia. Upon discovering this, I felt we definitely needed another dish to ensure our Aussie delight meal was as authentic as possible. I quickly took to Facebook to ask my numerous Australian friends I had met on Contiki what was the most Australian meal to make.
The front runners were pies, steak, and veggie mite. Veggie mite is something I've often heard Australians crave while traveling. It's very similar to Marmite and Bovril. What I found really interesting however, was that many of the dishes that were very Australian, were also very English. Meat pies, steak and chips, bubble and squeak, chicken parmy etc are decidedly English. With Australia being an old English colony, I'm not surprised really, but thought it interesting that it was such a strong influence. I would have loved to be able to make traditional Aboriginal meals too!
The Traveling Ginger is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. There may be other affiliate links for other products and services on this page and throughout the site. These affiliations allow me to earn a small commission or compensation if you click the link and make a purchase through me. I only promote products, services, companies and experiences that I genuinely believe in and approve of.
AUSSIE MEAL RECIPES
adapted from Australian Food.com
Shrimp on the Barbie
Ingredients
1/2 cup of butter, melted
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup of parsley and thyme
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons of minced garlic
1.5 lb of shrimp (unpeeled/deveined).
Directions
Combine all the ingredients except the shrimp in a large bowl. Mix together.
Mix the shrimp into the mixture and let it marinade for 1 hour at room temperature.
Get your barbecue ready. We got a coal fire grill on sale at Target! Use medium hot coals for the grilling
Squish your shrimp onto the skewer. We did four onto one, as our skewers were kind of small.
Grill until opaque, around 2 minutes on each side.
australian shrimp on the barbie marinade
Mini Meat Pies
Ingredients
4 sheets frozen shortcrust pastry, thawed
4 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 egg beaten
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped finely
1.1 lbs of ground beef
2 tablespoon of plain flour
1/3 cup of tomoato sauce (KETCHUP says the TN)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 1/4 cups beef stock
2 tablespoons of parsley, chopped
salt and pepper
Directions
The Filling
Saute the chopped onion in the extra virgin olive oil until translucent.
Combine the ground beef with the onion and cook until the mince is brown.
Sprinkle the flour over the meat and cook for another minute.
Add the ketchup, beef stock and Worchestershire sauce.
Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add parsley and season with salt and pepper.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.
The Pies
Preheat your oven to 390 degrees F ( 220 degrees C)
Grease your muffin tray.
Cut out circles from the shortcrust pastry. They must be large enough to line the cups of your tray (I used a large muffin tray).
Fill the pastry with the meat.
Cut out circles from the puff pastry. They must be large enough to cover the pies and crimp together with the shortcrust pastry.
Brush the edges of the pie with water, and then cover the pies by crimping the edges together.
Make a small cross in the center of the pie with a sharp knife, and then brush with the beaten egg.
Bake the pies for ten minutes.
Reduce the oven's tempearture to 350 degrees F (200 degrees C) and bake for another 20 minutes until golden brown.
EAT THE WORLD AUSTRALIA VERDICT
Well, it may be more helpful to indicate what I did wrong here, rather than what I thought was great. I clearly have never made pies before. And my first attempt at pies was not pretty. Majority of my pies would not lift properly out of their little muffin tins. Perhaps they wanted to be muffins instead. But most of them began to crumble as soon as I tried to pull them out. After writing up this recipe, I am now more understanding of why.
First of all, I brushed water onto the pie's "lid" as such, and then tried to squish and squeeze it onto the walls of the pie. You're supposed to water the edges, and then put the lid, not the other way around. Hence why my pies look somewhat more like cups with pastry lids on them. One pie also did not survive. It decided to fall apart.
These pies were also super rich. I mean, crazily so. Why? Because I put in two whole beef stock cubes. Not 1 and a half. And on top of that, instead of mixing the cubes with water - you know how you are supposed to - I just threw them into the pot. Yeah, I'm not the brightest of cooks in the kitchen. Maybe I should stick to traveling?
AUSTRALIA MOVIE PAIRING: MAD MAX FURY ROAD
Watch Mad Max Fury on Amazon Prime Videos.
The Traveling Ginger Rating 7/10
Apart from all the chaos and mishaps, the pies and the shrimps were pretty delicious. I don't know if I would like to eat the pies regularly the way I made them, but they were pretty good. The shrimps were also delicious! I really enjoyed them.
Have you been to Australia? What did you eat there? If you're Australian, what's your favorite Aussie meal?
