Muskrat is probably not frequent desk fare, however daring flavors and a low-and-slow cooking methodology make it price attempting
A buddy of mine lately bought his trapper’s license and invited me to lure muskrats within the cattail marsh on the bottom of his property. He had observed an enormous quantity of exercise from the semi-aquatic rodents and needed to lure a handful of them to follow working the hides and furs.
We strapped on snowshoes and lumbered via the deep snow, encumbered by the entire instruments of the commerce and adopted by our canines, who took turns exuberantly breaking path and tripping us by stepping on the backs of our ‘footwear.
Lastly making it to the again of his property, out of breath and muttering about needing to get in higher form, we took within the frozen maze of brown cattails that poked out of the ice, fluffy tops slowly letting go and drifting into the wind. The canines bounded energetically into the marsh, fortunately staying on prime of the ice, and instantly discovered some useless factor to roll in.
“Dammit canines! Git! Git out of there!”
Each canines got here working again to us, stinking to excessive heaven with their tongues fortunately lolling out of huge, silly grins. Nice.
My buddy started mentioning seemingly muskrat lodges and feeding platforms. We started working chopping ice and particles along with his previous axe with a view to set up the traps we’d introduced with us. After setting a number of traps and tying them to sticks to assist find them once more and to stop them from slipping away beneath the ice, we packed up and shuffled residence. The deadened quiet of the winter woods offered full silence apart from the squeak of the snow, the jingle of canine collars, and our breath which plumed into the air.
I attempted washing my canine Arrow, a joyful Small Münsterländer, however with out working water within the cabin I might solely accomplish that a lot. The scent of useless something-or-other permeated the air in my sleeping bag, which she had crawled into to remain heat. New, sulfurous odors coming from her bottom punctuated the overall miasma, most likely a results of the leftovers she had stolen from the counter after we weren’t wanting. Gotta love canine life.
The subsequent morning, we hiked again to the spot over an inch of recent snow, noting that there have been contemporary canine tracks making their method into the marsh.
“Assume it’s a wolf?” I speculated. “These prints appear too massive for a coyote.”
“I hope not,” my buddy replied. “It might need eaten all of my muskrats!”
We arrived on the fringe of the cattails and noticed the prints zig-zagging all over.
“Bizarre!” we each exclaimed in unison.
We started searching for the sticks he had left the traps connected to and couldn’t discover them.
“What the hell…?”
Canine prints had visited every website, so no matter it was appeared to have stolen the entire sticks.
“Bizarre!” we each mentioned once more.
Simply then, his black lab trotted up with one of many sticks in her mouth, wanting proud as ever. I regarded down and observed that her tracks have been the very same dimension because the prints we’d been following earlier.
“Dammit Elly!”
It appears she had snuck out in some unspecified time in the future, run all the way down to the marsh, and retrieved each stick we had left there. Good canine…?
After some digging round which left our fingers numb, we ultimately discovered the entire traps we had set, three of which have been connected to muskrats. We introduced them again to the cabin the place my buddy rigorously skinned them.
“You need the meat?” he requested.
“You understand I do!” I replied.
Muskrats as meals could be fairly polarizing within the wild sport world. For some, a muskrat roast conjures up easy, nostalgic meals eaten again residence; for others, it isn’t price contemplating as desk fare in any respect.
For my part? It’s not that dangerous!
Whereas muskrat won’t beat out a perfectly-grilled venison loin steak or a medium-rare seared duck breast, I discover that the flavour is completely acceptable for making a terrific meal out of it—you simply must do it proper. That includes brining to scale back robust flavors and cooking for lengthy sufficient to interrupt down what could be powerful meat.
Utilizing daring flavors additionally helps, particularly while you’re not used to consuming it. Every time I want daring flavors, I look to Asia for inspiration. For this recipe, inspiration got here from Taiwan, whose delicacies is known for a dish referred to as three-cup rooster, or san bei ji. The recipe was historically made with one cup of sesame oil, one cup of soy sauce, and one cup of rice wine, however has since been tweaked for a extra fashionable palate. I discovered the flavors of the dish paired completely properly with muskrat!
Taiwanese Three-Cup Muskrat
Elements
Directions
Diet
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