Monday, October 22, 2012

A Woodchuck Recipe


You will need one woodchuck (ground hog)
Onion, carrot, celery
Turkey stock (or beef) three pints
Kitchen Bouquet (adds flavor and darkens the gravy)
Bay leaves (2)
Salt and Pepper to taste to meat, add'l salt for dumplings below.
Flour  2 cups plus 3 TBL ( use the 2 cups for dumplings)
Butter 5 TBL  use 3 Tbl for roux and 2 for dumplings
2 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp Salt
Nutmeg to taste
Garlic to taste
Water
Milk to smooth out dumplings- not sure of measurement, 
it depends on how much the dumplings need for the correct consistency.  


Once the woodchuck is no longer living, 
Skin and clean it properly being very careful to remove the scent glands.
Cut off extra fat.
Soak in salted water over night. 


Change water in the morning and resoak in salted water a few hours.


Add turkey stock to a large, heavy pot.
Add cut onions, celery and carrots.
Add bay, salt and pepper
Add Kitchen bouquet
Cook until tender.

In a skillet add the 3 TBL butter and flour each.
You are making a roux.
Stir over low heat until dark but not chocolate brown.
This will take about 15 minutes or so.
Add the roux to the pot with vegetables and stir up well.


Pressure cook the woodchuck and garlic in two cups of water for 20 minutes 
once the pressures builds up and the top starts rocking.  


Cool down and open the pressure cooker once the pressure has dropped.


Take meat off the bone.
Put the meat in with the vegetables.

Make dumplings (this type is more of a drop biscuit)
Use the 2 cups of four
add 2 tsp of baking powder and 1 tsp salt
Add nutmeg
Add 2 TBL butter-cut in the butter until chunky/grainy
Add milk until the consistency of a sticky drop biscuit

Make sure the liquid is simmering in the pot
Drop the dough into the pot to make nice sized dumplings.
Put lid on for 15 minutes.


Now you are done.
Woodchuck and Dumplings


It tastes somewhere between chicken and beef, very tender due to the pressure cooking.

You can view part 1 and part 2 here.
Part 2 has graphic images.




10 comments:

Carolyn said...

Sounds YUMMY!! If I ever have a woodchuck needing "taken care of", I'll be sure to use this recipe, thanks!

Candy C. said...

Looks good! Can't beat free meat for supper!! :)

Our Neck of the Woods said...

Wow, you made good use out of that woodchuck! Kudos to you for not letting it go to waste!

Nancy said...

Hey -- good for you! You'd be surprised (or maybe not) what I've cooked up for supper with a trapper in the family. xo

Sunnybrook Farm said...

I guess they might be fit to eat in the fall but they seem to be bug infested in the summer. People used to just eat the hind legs but I never tried any, I do know from experience that they eat very good vegetables so they should be good meat for sure!

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

LOL, maybe we could share recipes! I visited your husband's site, WOW, lots of pelts. I don't know about the skunks though, I'd have second thoughts about that one.

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

This one was fine but of course really super fresh and skinned immediately. My husband compared it to eating ox tails.

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

That's what we figures, plus I needed to know how to do this. I didn't want to kill it and throw it out to the coyotes.

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

My neighbor routinely cooked squirrel in Germany. We may have to try that too if I can beat the cats to them.

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

I haven't told my friends at work yet. If they ate it, they would never know what it was.