The Glutton Club Returns! Recipe July 2018: Roasted Bush Chook

I was half asleep at the kitchen sink, pondering what to have for breakfast, then, kaboom! Thump! Splat! What the hell was that? I ventured out into the morning sunlight on the deck to see what the commotion was about and was greeted by a pretty grim scenario. A bush chook (aka orange-footed scrub-fowl), a native, ground-dwelling bird not known for being overly bright, appeared to have been spooked by something in the garden and proceeded to fly unwittingly into the very large, heavy outdoor fan. It had then rocketed into the French doors and the side of the house. It was still twitching when I found it so I rushed off to find something to put the poor thing out of its misery, but it had already passed on by the time I returned. I contemplated digging it a respectable grave so its lifelong partner (bush chooks being monogamous) could pay its respects now and again. That seemed like a bit too much effort, though, and a bit of a waste. What about roughly quartering it and feeding it to the dog? But that still seemed wasteful as it was quite plump and potentially rather tasty...

I then had a brainwave! I thought of my friend around the corner, Elvey (repeat Glutton Club contributor) who has a penchant for cooking up all manner of novel and native things given half the chance. I thought also of my other good friend who has a penchant for roasted fowl. I present now a step-by-step summary of how we came to create a delicious dish to honour the life of a sacrificial bush chook.

Step 1 Decide on cooking method (i.e. roast, curry, stir fry etc.) and accompanying dishes. The method we chose was to marinade and roast the bush chook alongside a shop-bought chook, for taste comparison. We added sides of salad and charcoal vegetables.

Step 2 Pluck and gut the chook. This is a rather messy process so best to do it in the privacy of your own backyard. Avoid helping the neighbour’s kids to find lost toys in backyard whilst in undies and covered in blood and feathers.

Step 3 Prepare marinade for both birds. Place each into separate oven bags and cover evenly with the marinade. Leave in the fridge for at least one hour to allow for sufficient soaking in of flavours. We used citrus flavoured soy, 1 grated orange, 1 grated lemon, 3 chillies, black pepper, coriander, ginger and garlic.

Step 4 Chop up a medley of vegetables (carrot, parsnip, beetroot, sweet potatoes and garlic), place on a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil and leftover marinade.

Step 5 Turn on BBQ and have a beer to admire one’s own resourcefulness.

Step 6 Place bush cook, shop-bought chook and vegetables in BBQ and close lid. Cook poultry until parasites are dead and the meat is not pink. Cook veggies until they are sufficiently black and crunchy.

Step 7 Shred/deconstruct birds, prepare table and serve all components (including very nice salad, ingredients of which I cannot remember) to the dinner party alongside people’s beverages of choice.

Review One average sized bush chook was enough to provide nine people with a small portion and together with the shop-bought chook, salad and veggies it made for a very pleasant meal. The meat itself we would compare to being a bit like turkey and everyone at the dinner party agreed they would partake in eating one again.

*Disclaimer Being a native species, bush chooks are legally protected and we do not condone the intentional harm of them for reasons of consumption. However, if one flies into your fan, car or similar, and unfortunately passes away, a good feed is on offer!

This piece was written by Elvey, Clint Cameron and Billy Ross. The Glutton Club is named after a club of the same name that was run by Charles Darwin himself while he was studying at Cambridge, where he and a group of friends met weekly with the goal of tasting ‘strange flesh’. A group of friends in Darwin are recreating this whenever they get the chance (ie. when a kamikaze bush chook flies into a fan). You can read a review of agile wallaby and magpie goose in the first ever edition of Flycatcher (wet season, 2016) and find a recipe for green ant daiquiris in the fourth, dry season edition of Flycatcher from 2017.