Saturday was an off-kilter day at the Eating Like The World laboratories. Friday night was spent at the drive-in, and we didn't turn in until three in the morning -- well, the kids fell asleep way before that, but Angel and I were awake until three. So I didn't get up until 11:00 Saturday morning, which is uncharacteristic for me. I spent the next hour and a half cleaning all of the dishes from Friday's awesome burgers, and then had to run into work for a few hours...and THEN run another half-hour north (I know, right? Further north from Traverse City must put me in Canada, or Santa's Workshop, right?) to pick up an internet purchase for a friend of Angel.
When I returned, Angel already had dinner mostly prepared. We had a pair of Australian staples: Meat pie was the first. We served it with a pea salad and had a dessert of the other staple: damper bread -- apple/cinnamon in our case.
Nobody really liked the pea salad -- peas and bell peppers and water chestnuts in some kind of white sour-cream-like sauce. I like peas, especially fresh and snappy like these were. I like bell peppers. Together, though it left me cold. Sorry peas'n peppers, no hard feelings.
The meat pie, on the other hand, was great. Honestly, it was like a home-made, 12" beef pot-pie with no vegetables. Savory, flaky, beefy...yum. There wasn't enough to satisfy all the requests for seconds. The damper, too, was pretty good. Sort of like an apple-y sponge cake. It was supposed to be covered with "golden syrup," which is totally unavailable in northern Michigan, and akin to a 50/50 corn syrup/honey mix, I guess. We had some honey syrup and it was pretty good with that.
Sunday morning we tried a common Australian breakfast...and went out for brunch. I'll save that for another post. For dinner, Angel chose fish'n chips, a staple brought over from England, I'd wager.
We used whiting fillets, which still had the skin on one side, and made a batter using an Australian beer (*not* Foster's!!) that I'd found in an awesome beer store in Lansing. We also sliced potatoes and made our own home-made chips. The fish was pretty good -- the skin imparted more of a fishy flavor than I prefer, but the batter was golden, crispy and great, and the fish was white and flaky, apart from the skin. I did have four pieces, I couldn't have hated it TOO much. Even the kids ate fish, which they typically regard as on the same level as old socks or Brussels sprouts.
Recipes: ...coming soon!
Next time you make "fish & chips", you need to cut the potatoes into thick french fry shapes. That's what chips are. Your batter on your fish looks great.
ReplyDeleteNo one drinks Fosters here nor can you even find it in shops here. It's a 100% export thing.
Damper is only eaten when camping or out in the bush generally. A common breakfast is more like a big English breakfast of sausages, bacon, eggs, toast, baked beans and a good espresso coffee.