KANGAROO TAILS

The flesh of the various members of the Kangaroo family--the big grey Kangaroo, the Wallaby, etc.--is an important food item among the natives of Australia, and hunting the larger animals is a favorite sport of white residents. Kangaroo meat proper seldom reaches the United States, but there is a limited importation of canned Kangaroo Tails. When preparing for the table, first warm the can, then draw off the jelly and gravy and make it into a hot sauce with port wine and seasoning, strain, add the pieces of tail and serve with croutons of fried bread around.

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a reference entry with a short serving method attached — essentially a sauce built from the canning jelly. The technique is sound; the ingredient is the problem.

The tinned product is goneCanned kangaroo tail was a colonial export line and has effectively vanished from general trade. Fresh and frozen kangaroo is sold in Australia and parts of Europe, but tails are butcher-order items rather than shelf goods.
US availabilityImporting and selling kangaroo products in the United States has been restricted at various times under wildlife law, and California has prohibited the sale of kangaroo parts during several periods, with the ban lapsing and being reinstated. Check current state and federal rules before sourcing any.
Oxtail is the working substituteThe dish is really a braised gelatinous tail in a port sauce. Oxtail behaves almost identically: same collagen, same rich jelly when the cooking liquor chills, and it takes three to four hours of gentle braising.
"Draw off the jelly and gravy"Warming the can liquefies the set aspic so it pours. If you are starting from raw tails, the equivalent is the strained braising liquid, reduced until it coats a spoon.
The sauceFigure roughly a quarter cup of port to a cup of the jelly, reduced together. Season with salt, pepper and a little mace or cayenne, strain, then return the meat to warm through rather than boil — long reheating shreds the tail off the bone.
CroutonsTriangles of white bread fried in butter or clarified fat until dry through, not merely coloured. Cut them before frying; they go soggy the moment they sit in sauce otherwise.
YieldThe entry gives none. A tail of any species yields far less meat than its size suggests — allow roughly 2 lb of oxtail for two to three people as a main course.

A Little History

Kangaroo tail soup was one of the few genuinely Australian dishes to reach European tables in the nineteenth century, and it travelled as a tinned novelty: firms packing meat for export shipped it alongside canned mutton and beef, and it turned up on British club and hotel menus as a curiosity of empire. The tail was chosen for the same reason oxtail and calf's foot were prized eing ssets to a firm jelly that survives canning and reheats into a glossy sauce with no thickener at all. The entry's slightly awkward split between ethnography and cookery is typical of the Grocer's Encyclopedia, which was written for shopkeepers who needed to know what an unfamiliar tin contained and what to tell a customer to do with it. Kangaroo is still eaten in Australia today, sold as steaks and mince; the tail is available from butchers and also has a place in Aboriginal cooking, where it is traditionally roasted whole in coals.