Sweet Baked Squirrel
"Unlike rabbit, cooked squirrel NEEDS something... it's hard to put your finger on. Here's a new and unique recipe that I developed that is straight from my Appalachian roots. Prep time includes marinating time."
- Ready In:
- 20hrs
- Ingredients:
- 10
- Serves:
-
2
ingredients
- 2 squirrels, cleaned and cut up into pieces (cut the back into 2 pieces)
- 3 tablespoons sorghum molasses (NOT blackstrap!)
- 1⁄4 cup cider vinegar
- 1 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups fresh portabella mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon onion, finely minced
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 3⁄4 cup chicken broth
- 1⁄4 cup corn oil
directions
- Place the washed, cut-up squirrel pieces in a medium-sized bowl.
- In another bowl, blend the sorghum molasses and the cider. Pour this over the squirrel pieces, cover, and allow to marinate for 18-24 hours in the refrigerator. Turn the pieces several times during the marinating process.
- After the marination process is complete, gently dab off excess marinade from the squirrel meat with damp paper towels and roll them in the flour to which the salt has also been added. Set these pieces aside on a piece of wax paper or parchment for 30 minutes.
- Pre-heat the oven to 275-degrees F.
- In a large skillet, heat the oil and brown up the squirrel pieces. Set aside on a plate when browned.
- In a small roaster or Dutch oven, pour in the chicken broth and add in the butter, the mushrooms and the minced onion mushrooms. Place a small rack or oven-proof bowl in the roaster pan so that it will elevate the squirrel pieces above the liquid. Then place the squirrel pieces on the rack or bowl and cover with a lid or aluminum foil.
- Bake for 90 minutes in the pre-heated oven (275-degrees F.) and then check the squirrel for tenderness. If it's not fork tender, bake it for 30-45 more minutes.
- When the squirrel is plated up, set aside, pour any bowl drippings into the liquid that's in the roaster pan and make (squirrel-based) "red-eye gravy" from the drippings. Take the mushrooms out first, make the gravy, and then add them back in, or, just baste the squirrel on the plates with some of the drippings and the mushrooms. Either way is good.
- NOTE! It is no longer adviseable to eat the squirrel brains as they have now been associated with a form of mad cow disease called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. While ADEQUATE cooking eliminates the problem, it's still not worth the risk until more is known about the problem: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E0D91231F93AA1575BC0A961958260.
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Reviews
-
Real nice way to cook squirrel... Was very good. I substitued olive oil for the corn oil! Great recipe thanks for posting! Will use again.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p>I am a retired State Park Resort Manager/Ranger. <br /><br />Anyway, as to my years in the State Park System (retired now), I was responsible for 4 restaurants/dining rooms on my park and my boss at Central Headquarters said I should spend less time in my kitchens and more time tending to my park budget. I spent 25 years in those kitchens and worked with some really great chefs over those years, (and some really awful ones too!) <br /><br />I spent THOUSANDS of hours on every inch of that park and adjacent state forest (60,000 acres) and sometimes I miss it. But mostly I miss being in that big beautiful resort lodge kitchen. I miss my little marina restaurant down on the Ohio River too. I served the best Reuben Sandwich (my own recipe -- posted on 'Zaar as The Shawnee Marina Reuben Sandwich) in both the State of Ohio and the Commonwealth of Kentucky down there and sold it for $2.95. Best deal on the river! <br /><br />They (friends and neighbors) call my kitchen The Ospidillo Cafe. Don't ask me why because it takes about a case of beer, time-wise, to explain the name. Anyway, it's a small galley kitchen with a Mexican motif (until my wife catches me gone for a week or so), and it's a very BUSY kitchen as well. We cook at all hours of the day and night. You are as likely to see one of my neighbors munching down over here as you are my wife or daughter. I do a lot of recipe experimentation and development. It has become a really fun post-retirement hobby -- and, yes, I wash my own dishes. <br /><br />Also, I'm the Cincinnati Chili Emperor around here, or so they say. (Check out my Ospidillo Cafe Cincinnati Chili recipe). SKYLINE CHILI is one of my four favorite chilis, and the others include: Gold Star Chili, Empress Chili and, my VERY favorite, Dixie. All in and around Cincinnati. Great stuff for cheap and I make it at home too. <br /><br />I also collect menus and keep them in my kitchen -- I have about a hundred or so. People go through them and when they see something that they want, I make it the next day. That presents some real challenges! <br /><br />http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/parks/parks/shawnee.htm</p>
