Many people would think that the hardest part of being in Australia is the daily struggle to stay alive and unbitten by spiders.
But really, the hardest part is going without a southern comfort meal.
Sure, the food here is hearty and delicious. Don't get me started on meat pies. I can no longer live without a proper meat pie.
But every once in a while you get a taste in your mouth and you want nothing else.
This week, that was biscuits and gravy.
Spoiler: and I fuckin' did it.
In the USA I could go as lazy as lazy gets, grab a cheap ass CAN of gravy. Biscuits, also in a can. And have a subpar breakfast in the dead of night over the sink like a rodent.
But in Australia, not only do buttermilk biscuits NOT exist... neither does flour gravy. For that matter, there isn't ground breakfast sausage, either.
The description of this meal is enough to make even the toughest Aussie lad turn a little green. Granted, it sounds unappealing.
"So it's gravy..."
"Like brown gravy? I love gravy!"
"No, it's white."
"....???"
"And you put them over a thing that is kind of like a scone but less sweet. They are called biscuits."
"GRAVY? ON A COOKIE?!"
Once I had gathered all these horrified responses, I was definitely going to be making it. Somehow. And force it onto others.
The first dilemma: Biscuits.
I have never been much of a bread baker, and biscuits have always been daunting. There is no way I could turn out a proper biscuit in a temperamental oven. People in the south spend YEARS creating and safely guarding their biscuit recipes that you would have to pry from their cold, dead hands.
So, it was on to find something as close as I could to a buttermilk biscuit. As it happens, I stumbled across buttermilk SCONES. They are slightly sweet, but are as close to a southern American biscuit as you can get!
Done and dusted.
Now, my next challenge: The gravy.
Flour and butter, no problem. Full cream milk? Check.
But the sausage...
Things might get a little dicey. I wandered through the store, lost in the meat department. This was when I discovered there was no minced pork to be had. Maybe lamb would do?
I wandered over to the snags. I stared at them. I knew there would be no sort of maple flavored snag. So I decided I would go spicy gravy. Perhaps there was ground pork here for making your own sausage?
BUT THEN I remembered the sausages here actually contain real meat. And spices. They aren't "hot dogs" but MEAT.
Fuck. Yes.
Look. You can see REAL MEAT INSIDE THAT BITCH.
Problem solved. $5 pack of pork sausages. Cut them open and cook them up!
Now it was time to get my ass into the kitchen.
I came in and started giggling as I split open snags and put them into the hot pan. I poured a glass of wine. My eyes glazed over with biscuit and gravy lust.
I looked back at him, maddened by the fatty vapors, as I poured hot sauce into the sausage. And then enough butter to clog the arteries of a toddler. And plopped down a kilo of white flour.
He watched, apprehensive, as I begin to stir flour into the butter. Making an orange paste laced with chili.
His will to live wavered as he saw me go for the milk.
He knew what was happening now. He had seen this look in my eyes before.
I silently stirred my cauldron of fats. Carefully allowing the flour and milk to meld to perfect creaminess. The pork bubbling to the surface and releasing the delicious smell of heart disease.
In the end, I had enough gravy to feed a small army.
And everyone fucking liked it.
Omnomfuckingnom
But since there are so few scones and so much gravy, the fate of the leftovers have been decided.
It shall be turned into meat pies. Delicious, tasty, SAUSAGE GRAVY MEAT PIES.
My two loves. They shall become one.
The cardiac arrest will be worth it.