Finally made my squirrel and dumplings!

[djmyers]

I finally got around to making the squirrel and dumplings and good ness it is off the chain! Kids loved it. Wife thinks I'm nasty for eating them but me and the kids liked it. Was easy as he'll to make also. Fisrt time I've made it and am impressed. I ain't letting another walk through the yard. They taste too dang good. Next I'm gunna run the grackle through the turkey fryer. Lol not really they are getting ground for chum. I impressed myself with his one.

[michael90t]

squirrles make a darn fine gravy too!! never had dumplings but I but that would be a great way to have squirrel as well!!

[Big_Bill]

O.K. Dj,

Now what was your recipe ? And how did you tenderise the squirrel

The last one I have eaten, I marinated it for two days, it was still too stringy !

I have eaten them several times in the past, and have never quite gotten them tenderised well enough. I suppose that if I put the meat into the stew earlier, it might have cooked it to pieces.

Congratulations buddy !!!!

Shoot what you see, See what you eat !

Bill

[Progun]

dj, good for you on that squirrel and dumplings dish. I've been a proud advocate of utililizing harvested game my whole life and it just makes me proud to see my fellow airgunners stepping up to do the right thing and eating what they kill. Especially Grey and Fox squirrels which historically have been a staple item on dinner plates since the Pilgrims arrived on this continent. Lot's of urbanites don't have a clue about wild game and what is very edible and in today's world even the rural areas are populated with former city dwellers who have no historical understanding of the natural world or the food that is all around them. So don't be surprised when your wife turns her nose up at anything that didn't come neatly packaged from a grocers shelf. So many it seems only believe that "food" originates from a grocery store or restaurant even though in reality that is just where you purchase it from. Squirrels are Great for food but the older "tougher" squirrels are best parboiled and cooked with dumplings.Here in Tennessee(home of Davy Crockett and Sgt.Alvin York) we have an underutilized spring squirrel season but in late August when the "real" squirrel season opens I take full advantage and fry up every young squirrel  I can get.And yes, with gravy (made from broth) and cat head biscuits,delicious.

[djmyers]

Too prepare the squirrels I boiled them in chicken boulon and creole seasoning for about an hour and a half then made the biscuit dough and dropped them in the broth for the dymplongs and added carrots and celry. Boiled them for a about 15-20 minutes then stripped all the meat I could off the squirrels. 3 of hem he meat fell off the other 2 were a little tougher. Boiled it all for about another 15 min and it thickened right up. For the dumplings use about marble size peices cause they grow quick. And the rest of the dumpling dough not used made very fine cat heads to go with it. Thought me and my kids were the only ones that called them that.

And I dint waste a thing. The left over skeletons went in the canal for crab bait. Even the grackles and squirrel gut get used. I grind it for chum. Feathers add alot to a chum line. And the wife grew up in the country but has turned into a let's go shoppingand drink 10 dollar coffee kinda person. One of our first dates we wnt to a park in Memphis and saw about a 15 lb cat fish stuck in a small feeder creek so we took off our shoes and jumped in. Ended up giving that cat fish to a little old lady that Was out there fishing. She gave me a hug and was about to start dancing when we gave her the fish.

 The wife may have forgotten her roots but At least the kids are learning right.