Because the doctor has me on a mission to eat more vitamin B12 and iron I am on a mission to disguise meat with other flavours. As you may already be aware, I really love paprika and onion to make things tasty (see Egg White Omelette that wasn’t gross) and lemon goes great with everything so that is the basic idea behind the Paprika and Lemon Myrtle Rub.

For those who have never heard of lemon myrtle is a plant native to Queensland, Australia that is used as a herb in cooking. It has a delicate, but strong lemon flavour a little like lemongrass. It is absolutely scrumptious in shortbread and cookies but here I have used it in a savoury dish in which it was great. If you can’t get lemon myrtle (don’t be surprised if you can’t), just add some lemon juice to the mix.

I used this rub on both steak and kangaroo (yes, something of an Aussie theme today) and it would also be good on tempeh, chicken or tofu. Although the flavour combination is quite Portuguese (my soon to be home?) with paprika, lemon and garlic, it has a distinctly Australian flare

Paprika and Lemon Myrtle Rub

½ tsp lemon myrtle, dried and ground to small flakes
2 tsp paprika (I used a sweet, mild paprika, smoky would be too strong)
1 tsp ground garlic
1 tsp salt

Mix together all the rub ingredients.

Give your meat/protein of choice a light coat of oil and then liberally sprinkle on the rub. Let it rest for about half an hour before grilling or frying.


For the kangaroo and steak I like to fry on each side for about 4 minutes and then pop it in a 200 degree Celsius (400F) oven for another 8 minutes. This gets a nice sear on the outside without burning the spices but the meat still gets cooked to rare or medium-rare. I let my steak/kangaroo rest for as long as I can stand to wait for dinner, so about 5 minutes.

If you are eating kangaroo, it can get tough if it is not rare. This was not at all tough, this was so tender it melted in the mouth.