Retro Food For Modern Times

I guess each culture has a food they like to eat when drunk.  The Brits for instance love a curry when they are five sheets to the wind.  Closer to home, we in Melbourne like nothing better than a kebab or its Greek cousin, the souvlaki.  Ahhhh….greasy meaty goodness wrapped in pita bread…deeelicious  whatever you call it.  There was also a spate, back in the 1990’s of mobile hot dog vendors but they were a passing fad.  Nothing beats the 3:00am drunken kebab.  Not in this town anyway.

So ubiquitous is the post pub/club kebab run that I assumed it was a national pass-time.  Oh, so wrong.  A few years ago I ventured across the border into South Australian territory for a wedding.  Post-wedding we ventured into the casino and post-casino we ran into one of the weirdest instances of drunk food I have ever seen.  Which of course, in celebration of the month of crazy and Australia Day (January 26th) I am going to replicate here.  We’ll return to that in a moment.

But first, Adelaide. It’s a weird place.  City of Churches and bizarre serial killings.  And before anyone from South Australia gets their knicks in a knot.  It is true. Dexter said so.

And…the very second I typed Adelaide and serial killers, the little app that I have that tells me about related content brought up an article on a body found in a wheelie bin.  You can fool some of the people some of the time South Australia but the internet will not be fooled.  I on the other hand….did I say I lived in Melbourne?  I meant Sydney.  Or Perth.  Yeah, Perth.  It’s even further away and in the opposite direction.  Yep, I definitely live in Perth.  Just in case you are thinking about crossing any boundaries with your serial killer ways, take a leaf from the Village People and Go West.

But I digress, we’re here to talk about food.  Australian food  to boot. The picture above shows one of the classic legendary Australian dishes.  The Meat Pie.  Second possibly only to the Vegemite Sandwich as THE Australian dish.

We love to eat our meat pies with a bit of….and now here’s some Aussie slang for you….a bit of  “dead horse”.  And no, not in that ooky, literal European way.  “Dead horse” is Australian rhyming slang for tomato sauce.  That would be ketchup to my American friends.

And in Melbourne Perth this is how we eat our pies. Just as pies.  With ketchup.  Lovehearts optional.

And, if we have soup…lets just say a rather hearty pea and ham soup.  We have it like this.  Just soup.  Maybe with some crusty bread. Or a crouton.

Let us now return to the street outside the Adelaide casino at 3:00am.

The BF had gone over to the van to get us each a kebab. He came back empty handed and shaking his head.  “It’s not kebabs.  It’s pies and soup.”

“Ewww…who wants soup at this time of night.  But I’ll have a pie. ”

“No, it’s not pies and soup.  It’s pies IN soup”

I honestly did not believe him.  Until I wandered over to take a look.

And sure enough….pies in pea soup…..

This is drunk food in Adelaide.  Seriously.  Loveheart optional.

And if you don’t believe me, here’s some independent confirmation.

I told you they were freaky over there.

I would love to tell you that I tried this and despite all my Victorian West Australian prejudices it was awesome.

Except it wasn’t.

It wasn’t as repulsive as I thought it would be.  But it was definitely a whole that was a lot less than the sum of its parts. And nowhere near as good as a kebab.

Maybe you need to be drunk to enjoy it.

If you want to try this delight for yourself, you can find a recipe for a Beef and Shiraz Pie here.  I have used this recipe before and it is a beauty, however I just bought the ones I used for this.  I made the soup though and it was really good.  I subbed in chorizo for the more traditional ham and it made the soup super tasty! Recipe below.

I am looking forward to a long weekend celebrating Australia Day. Just not with a meat pie floater….

Have a great week where ever you are!!!  I would also love to know what constitutes drunk food in your neck o’ the woods.  Drop me a comment….

Pea and Chorizo Soup

Print Recipe

A delicious hearty take on a pea and ham soup – a classic winter warmer

• Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 chorizo sausages, removed from their casing and diced
• 2 carrots, peeled, diced
• 2 sticks of celery, peeled, diced
• 1 onion chopped finely
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
• 300g green split peas
• 2litres cold water
• Salt and Pepper

To Serve

• Warm bread rolls or a meat pie and sauce

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Instructions

1. Rinse the split peas under cold running water until the water runs clear. Drain.
2. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the chorizo and cook until the meat is browned. Add the carrots, celery, onions and garlic and cook, stirring occaisionally, until the onions are softened.
3. Add the split peas and water. Bring to the boil over high heat.
4. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, covered for about an hour or until the split peas are cooked.
5. Allow to cool slightly then process the mixture to your desired level of “chunkyness” either using a stick blender or by processing small batches of the mix in a blender.
6. Season with salt & pepper.
7. Serve with warm bread rolls if you are normal or with a pie and sauce floating in the centre if you are not.

Notes

• I like my soup fairly chunky so I usually only put about a third of it in the blender.