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Moose-and-Squirrel Meat Balls
3 lbs. ground moose and squirrel
6 slices soft white bread
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup Butter
1 1/3 cups onion; chopped
Salt
pepper; freshly ground
2 tbsp. parsley; chopped
2 tbsp. flour
1 1/2 cups milk
(Especially useful recipe if main ingredients have been dead for 24 or more hours before harvested)
Soak bread in water five minutes. Squeeze excess water out.
Melt four tablespoons butter in skillet. Sauté onion in butter until tender.
Combine moose and squirrel meat, squeezed bread, four teaspoons salt, one-half teaspoon pepper and parsley. Form mixture into one-inch balls. Chill twenty minutes.
Heat remaining butter in skillet. Brown moose-and-squirrel balls on all sides. Cover skillet and cook slowly 15 minutes.
Remove balls to warm platter. Sprinkle flour over skillet droppings. Stir and cook one minute. Stir in milk and bring to boil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Return moose-and-squirrel balls to skillet. Simmer four minutes.
Yield: 8 Servings
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Elegant Venison Stew
2 lb venison steak
1/2 lb bacon or salt pork
2 tbsp. flour
6 cups stock
1 can stewed tomatoes or zucchini
8 small carrots carrots
2 stalks celery diced
2 tbsp. sugar
7 small onions
garlic to taste
1 cup peas
salt and pepper; to taste
Cut bacon into 1″ cubes and saute in large saucepan until lightly browned. Remove and set aside. Cut venison into 1 1/2 or 2″ pieces and brown over high heat in bacon fat. Stir in flour and make a roux. Lower heat and let brown 2-3 minutes.
Add stock and stir till smooth. Simmer 1 hour or more until venison begins to get tender, add more liquid as necessary.
Add all the other ingredients, except peas, and continue to simmer to make a thick stew. Simmer peas in a separate pan until done. Strain and spoon over or around stew when served. Serve with corn muffins, potatoes or parsnips and a salad.
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Skunk Skillet Stew
2 adult skunks; skinn, debone & shred
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup Butter
2 cups celery; finely chopped
1/4 cup parsley; finely chopped
2 cloves garlic; finely minced
1 bay leaf
2 carrots; chopped
2 tbsp. flour
1 cup beef broth
1 cup dry red wine
3 tbsp. cognac
1 lb. ripe red tomatoes; peeled, seeded & chopped
Salt; to taste
freshly ground black pepper; to taste
juice of half-lemon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup Madeira wine
(A sensory entree, not recommended for the weak-stomached)
* Save scent sacs and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In large skillet, brown skunk well in oil and butter; add carrots and stir until lightly browned. Sprinkle with flour. Add broth as needed when mixture starts to brown.
Stir to dissolve brown particles. Add remaining broth, red wine, cognac, tomatoes, salt and pepper.
Place in oven, cover and bake three hours.
Strain gravy, pressing as much of cooked vegetable mixture as possible through sieve. Bring strained mixture to boil. Add lemon juice, nutmeg, Madeira.
Carefully puncture scent sacs and add fluids to mixture. Simmer five minutes.
Pour sauce over skunk.
Yield: 8 Servings
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Pennsylvania Possum Pot Pie
1 5 lb. possum; cut into serving pieces
water
Salt
12 peppercorns
2 ribs celery; chopped
2 carrots; quartered
2 cups flour
4 egg yolks
6 tbsp. hot water
(Often served to unsuspecting bed-and-breakfast tourists in Amish country)
Place possum in kettle. Add water to cover, salt to taste, peppercorns, celery, carrots and onion. Simmer until possum is thoroughly tender, about two hours.
Strain broth and pour into clean kettle. Simmer while preparing remaining ingredients.
Remove possum from bones. Discard bones and skin. Cut possum into bite-size pieces.
Sift flour and one-half teaspoon salt together onto board. Make well in center and put egg yolks into it. Gradually work yolks into flour until stiff dough is formed, adding hot water as needed. Knead until smooth, about five minutes.
Cut dough in half. Roll each half until paper thin. Cut dough into noodles about one inch wide. Add possum to simmering broth. Gradually add noodles.
Continue boiling until noodles are done, about five minutes.
Yield: 8 – 12 Servings
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Carmelized Muskrat Onaplank (Muskrat On A Plank)
1 muskrat; fresh
1 hickory plank; larger than muskrat
1 tbsp. cooking oil
1 tsp. Salt
2 green onions; finely chopped
1 dash pepper
1 tbsp. fish sauce
Skin the fresh muskrat and discard the skin. (Can be saved and tanned into leather.)
Nail muskrat to the hickory plank, carefully stretching out.
Heat oil in 2 quart pot, then add onion and remaining ingredients. Saute, stirring, on medium heat until the sauce is done (about 5 minutes or more).
Place planked muskrat in a large pot, add 4 cups of water and simmer, uncovered, on medium heat for one hour. Add the fish sauce and continue to simmer on medium heat 1 more hour.
Most of the water will be absorbed by the meat and the remainder will be slightly thick–or carmelized.
Be careful not to burn it. Remove the muskrat from the pot carefully!
Seperate muskrat from the plank, and place meat to one side. Pour the sauce from the pot over the plank. Totally discard the muskrat and eat the plank.
Serve hot as a main dish, with lots of rice.
Yield: 4 Servings
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Venison Sloppy Joe Mix
4 lbs. venison hamburger (no fat)
3 cups onion; chopped
2 cups bacon fat
2 cups tomato catsup
2 1/2 cups water
2 tbsp. garlic powder
1 small can tomato paste
1 tbsp. salt
1 1/2 cups green pepper; chopped
1 tbsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. pepper
Cook venison and onions until brown. Pour off excess fat. Add all other ingredients; mix thoroughly; bring to a boil and simmer 5 minutes.
Pack into clean, boiled Mason pint jars, leaving 1′ head space. Adjust lids.
Process at 15 lbs. pressure for 75 minutes, or 10 lbs. pressure for 110 minutes.
Yield: 8 pints.
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Hmmmmm...very interesting recipes! ;D
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If you find these recipes interesting, you should check into a couple of cookbooks:
Unmentionable Cuisine - covers recipes that use offal and such
The Northern Cookbook - covers recipes from the backwoods of Canada
Very interesting reading, even if you never try a recipe from either.
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An acquaintance told me of how his family survived the depression eating roadkill, and they were thankful for it and actively sought it out. Those who had cars at the time and could afford to drive them likely also had no trouble obtaining foodstuffs so they didn't take home their kills.
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Groundhogs were known as "Hoover Hogs" here in those days, Josh. In the deep South and Southwest, armadillos were honored with that Presidential nickname.
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Those venison sloppy joe's are very close to the ones my Uncle made from raccoons he'd caught in live traps. He would fatten them up for a few months, skin and clean them, (he got 25 bucks for the pelt), cut then into pieces and let them cook in a slow cooker until the meat fell off the bone. He'd pour it into a big sauce pan through colander, separating the meat from the bones, and discard the latter. He'd let it cool a bit, then skim the fat and remove the excess liquid. He'd add his secret sauce and let it cook down a bit, about a half hour. It was amazingly good.
There a number of "roadkill cook-offs" in the region. None of it is really road kill, most of it is wild meat donated by hunters and trappers. If you've never had black bear, you haven't lived. It's up there with buffalo in flavor and tenderness. No wonder the Natives and early settlers loved it? I was five when I first had bear, I remember it like it was yesterday it made such an impression me.
I've seen good ol' boys jump out of a truck with a bow saw when spotting freshly hit deer to cut off the haunches. Two years ago I passed a carcass of a big buck in mid-fall that I had first spotted that September grazing regularly in meadow by the highway with a huge rack. It had been clipped by a car. Someone had used a chain saw to remove the head. Idiots like that should take a head first trip into the wood chipper.
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Hmmm. I've had aligator, octopii, venison, and bufferloe, but the gameyness of coon turns me right off. Can't imagine possum either. Bbq squirrel was kinda like a buffalo wing in size and taste. You guys can have all my roadkill.
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I'm willing to try some things, but not everything on that list...
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Hmmm. I've had aligator, octopii, venison, and bufferloe, but the gameyness of coon turns me right off. Can't imagine possum either. Bbq squirrel was kinda like a buffalo wing in size and taste. You guys can have all my roadkill.
That's why you catch them live and feed them table scraps for a few months. If you take only the young ones, the "gaminess" people complain about isn't a problem. "Gaminess" in any wild animal has never bothered me unless someone has cut the bladder or a gland when skinning the things. Otherwise, that's how they're supposed to taste. Why do you think they call it "game"?
You've got to be careful with squirrels. In parts of the Midwest and Ohio Valley, people, especially women, traditionally eat the brains mixed in with scrambled eggs, it's considered a delicacy and source of vitamins. However, eating squirrel brains has been tied to higher than normal incidences of Creutzfeldt-Jackob's Disease aka "Mad Cow Syndrome" in the region. (It explains Woody Hayes and Bobby Knight. Those two probably ate 'em regularly on their mother's knees.)
I had a great-Aunt by marriage who died from the disease in the mid 80's, most likely from consuming squirrel brains when she was a young woman. It takes roughly thirty to forty years after consumption for symptoms to show up, by then it's too late. Another woman I knew was diagnosed in mid-part of the last decade when they had a handle on what caused it in that region. She was dead inside of year. It causes dementia you're aware of and you lose control of your body.
It makes me glad I never liked scrambled eggs. If you came home with a mess of squirrels, the women always called "heads".
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Eating brains with scrambled eggs or.... any eggs is like having cholesterol with your cholesterol, brains are pretty much all cholesterol. And my brains is tellin me propagashuns is way down today.
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You missed a few sources, Josh. Lard, buttermilk, butter and bacon grease. Lard, buttermilk, and butter went into making the biscuits they had on the side, with more butter for eating the biscuits. (Lard is the key to good biscuits.) Then they fried up a half pound or more of bacon for another side and used the grease to make the eggs. Sometimes the squirrels would be wrapped in bacon, too. Everyone lived to eighty plus and dropped dead of a stroke, just like God intended.
BTW, you didn't need any greasy kids stuff for your hair. You got a dab of fat out the cans and cut-off milk cartons they stored the excess flavored fat in and ran it through your hair. If it was good enough for Elvis, James Brown, and Jerry Lee Lewis, it was good enough for you. It was a glorious time to be alive!
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I remember reading roadkill recipes in an Easy Rider magazine back in the late 70's.
"Put roadkill wrapped in tin foil on top of your Harleys engine for so many miles.... "
It was a lengthy serious article. I suppose that would work.
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I remember reading roadkill recipes in an Easy Rider magazine back in the late 70's.
"Put roadkill wrapped in tin foil on top of your Harleys engine for so many miles.... "
It was a lengthy serious article. I suppose that would work.
You just made me think of this classic cookbook.
https://www.amazon.com/Manifold-Destiny-Guide-Cooking-Engine/dp/1416596232
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I knew a hippy couple in the 70's who used to cook pot roast on the manifold when going to out of state music fests. She was pretty down to earth, but he was nuttier than a fruitcake. He used to show up at parties dressed as "Glenda The Good Witch" on regular basis. As he was 6'8" and unstable, no one said much to him about it.
She's still around and remarried. He and his brother joined some cult and live out near Mt. Shasta waiting for the Moon Men to come pick them up. It's been over twenty years, they're still waiting. I hope he doesn't get mistaken for a Sasquatch in a dress, only to be shot by some hunter or weed grower.
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I think I'm more than justified in expecting another pigmeat themed/tribute privateer radio bcast for this thread.