Dingo ate my damper

Let the cook-off begin!

Erin and I have decided to travel to the outback for our first cook off with five nights of dishes on the line. We like to compete with each other regularly, to keep things interesting and usually we are pretty well matched on all levels. It's been tough as of late though, to find the right playing field to face off against a woman who is 6 months pregnant. Flag football just didn't seem appropriate, but hey, Have Kitchen, Will Travel.

In the process of researching the menu, I found that Australian cuisine is, in many ways, similar to American cuisine in that it reflects the local and regional geography and the different cultures that have emigrated to the country over the years. Lots of dishes native to britain, adapted to reflect the varying climates and regions present in Australia. Throw in the native Maori cuisine, as well as strong influence from Asia, and you actually have a lot of interesting possibilities.

I did not ultimately choose to stray too far from the reservation. For this throw-down I went with barbecued lamb chops, brussel sprouts, and a common Australian bread known as damper. I know what you're thinking.....brussel sprouts. Trust me though, it all turns out OK. Why? Because everything had bacon in it. Yes, that's right, even the bread had bacon in it.

I started with the bread, a version of damper that calls for pumpkin, bacon, and onions. Damper is a common bread in Australia that can be cooked over an open fire. After sauteing the bacon and onions, I mixed them in with the dough and threw the pan onto the grill. Sure, I could have used the oven, but it's much easier to say to your buddies "I made bread using open flame" than "I baked a nice pumpkin bread for dinner". For the lamb, I went with loin chops and marinated them in a homemade BBQ sauce with current jam as the base, along with a few other key ingredients. These went on the grill with the bread, along with a few slices of cut pineapple. I was a little unsure of the pineapple, but it turned out to be a great balance.

Which brings me to the brussel sprouts. I am not a huge fan, but am a true believer in the mantra Bacon Makes it Better. When I saw an Aussie recipe for brussel sprouts that included a significant amount of bacon, I was sold. With the remainder of the bacon and onions left over from the bread prep, I cooked up the brussel sprouts and added some french onion soup mix to simmer and cook away all the evil brussel-sprout voodoo.

When it all came together, the meal was pretty well balanced, with the lamb taking the top spot. My brother John was in town visiting and, along with Erin, agreed that the sauce combined with the pineapple was a sweet and surprising combo. I thought the bread would be sweeter than it was, but the pumpkin did not overwhelm and gave it a nice flavor. It was pretty dry though and was a good mop for the left over sauce from the chops. The brussel sprouts were good, but a little salty and, I hate to say this, may have had too much bacon. Wait, what am I saying, you can never have too much bacon. In hindsight though, I probably would have used less or no french onion soup mix. I think the recipe I made had more sodium than movie theater popcorn butter.

At the end of the day, the lamb chops were, as they say, Ace and the bread was a good mate. The brussel sprouts were good too and could probably be better with a little tweaking. Overall, after getting input from John, the guest judge, the verdict was a total of 4.0 for TK's version of Australian cuisine.

All I can say is that I think this meal will leave my spunk Sheila good and stonkered!