#9 - Australia

Jack was at a friend's house for much of the day and so I was left flying solo preparing our meal this week. It turns out that we know a lot of people that have either lived in, or been frequently to Australia, and so we got many suggestions of what we should make. We tossed around the idea of kangaroo (quickly vetoed by Ruth), Vegemite on toast, and chicken parmigiana (which is actually the most popular food in Australia apparently). In the end we went the winner of a 2016 national poll of Australians. At that time 25% of Australians felt that roast lamb was their national dish, 23% voted for meat pies and 22% voted for barbecued sausage in bread (I still don't have a good idea of what this is...sounds like a hotdog to me).

So, on the basis of that highly scientific data, and my love of lamb, we decided to have a very traditional roast lamb dinner. In order to try and make it as "Australian" as possible I went with recipes found in Australian Women Weekly - roast leg of lamb, mashed potatoes and celeriac and glazed carrots.

We decided to go full Aussie for dessert and made Lamingtons. Thanks in part to Jack's early desire to be a chef we've watched a LOT of cooking and baking shows over the years. And we've actually seen Lamingtons made on some of those shows. The idea seemed easy enough, and to be honest the taste was really great. The execution from an aesthetic perspective left something to be desired however.

All in all Australia earned a solid 9 out of 10 from everyone. Even Andrew (who doesn't like lamb) thought it was pretty good - although that may have been influenced by the fact that he saw the price of the lamb!

We're getting close to the end of the A's with Austria up next.