I’m a passionate cook and love to travel. By day, I am a researcher and spent most of my time thinking about how minerals and infrastructure dictate the quality of people’s lives. This blog tracks my other passion: good food (without dairy), sustainable proteins, and global travel.
Dairy free cooking
I love dairy; it does not love me. Most dairy-free recipes rely on heavy-fat substitutes – I’m looking at you, coconut cream. That’s fine, but not if you are tracking macros or managing your weight. My cooking aims to manage fat while crafting food that is full of flavour.
Part of the answer to this is through exploring cuisines that have not relied on dairy in the first place. Many Asian cuisines build incredible flavour through technique, not through cream and cheese. They understand how to layer aromatics, balance acid and salt, create richness without fat.
My recipes attempt to develop flavour, richness and mouthfeel without a reliance on saturated fat.
Kangaroo
Kangaroo is increasingly recognised as a nutritional powerhouse: 98% fat-free, 24g protein per 100g, sustainably wild-harvested. Although it is widely available in Australia (as kangaroo is a pest), there are not many guides on how to cook it.
The first time I cooked it, I treated it like beef and ended up with shoe leather. While it is a great substitute for lamb and beef, it is not and has to be treated as a lean meat to get the best results. This doesn’t mean that it can’t be stewed, just that it needs to be cooked with its inherent qualities in mind.
Fusion cooking is central to Australian cuisine. We are a multicultural nation, and it is nowhere more apparent in what we eat.
Mixing and matching cuisines with what is locally available has generated a unique and multi-faceted culinary identity. When travelling, people have often asked what we eat at home, and it is a hard one to answer as there is no real standard answer. Our home, like most Australians’, features food from around the world.
But I’m not just about recipes, I want to understand why recipes work. Why does lime juice tenderise meat? What happens when you caramelise onions? How do you build umami without cheese?
This Blog Is For:
- Dairy free recipes that are not saturated-fat bombs
- Fitness enthusiasts chasing high-protein recipes with actual flavour
- Home cooks who want to understand technique, not just follow instructions
- Foodies who love exploring global flavours.
A Note on Kangaroo
I know eating skippy may sound controversial. From a sustainability perspective, kangaroos are wild-harvested, produce negligible greenhouse gases and require no cleared land or feedlots. Some people think that eating kangaroo is cruel. In my view, because they are wild-harvested, the animals live natural lives up until they are shot and therefore are exposed to much less cruelty than commercially-reared meat. Regardless, I also eat commercially-reared meat.
Beyond this, there are concerns about the lack of First Nations involvement in the commercial kangaroo industry.
Let’s Connect
This blog is just getting started. I’m building a community of curious cooks who care about flavor, technique, and eating well.
Follow along:
- Instagram: [@currentsandspice]
- Pinterest: [Currents & Spice]
I love hearing from readers. Made one of my recipes? Send a photo. Stuck on a technique? Ask. Want to see something specific? Tell me.
Welcome to Currents & Spice. Let’s make something delicious.
—Natalie
Brisbane, Australia
