Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping How to cook a beaver...?

Good comments. Thanks.

I bone the meat out into cubes, mix with 20% by weight with bacon ends, and grind it into burger. Much better meat than venison in my opinion.

Here's a post on my blog about processing beaver into burger.

I've heard it makes real good bait....just what I would do with it.

Make's the best bear, coyote, bobcat bait. If they ever let us shoot wolves in Michigan, wolf bait.

I cooked some for the first time yestersday. It was a 14# kit, I got maybe 1.5 lbs of meat off the legs and back strap. Cut it small pieces, I shaked in flower with pepper and salt, lightly browned, then simmered a few hours in red wine and bullion with carrots and onion. This is how I cook the tougher cuts of venison. It had a unique sweet taste to it. Did not like as much as venison. Not sure if I will cook again. I usually use it for bait.

baste in White Zinfandel, simmer in Hottub for 45mins, then stuff?



but in all seriousness, had "Sweet Pickled Beaver" once, and it was amazing. would love to find the recipe.

Well, our game dinner is tomorrow, so I prepared the beaver last night, which was cut in small cubes to go in green chile sauce (in addition to pork).

After defrosting, took it out to have a look. The front haunches were somewhat mangled and bloodied, so I discarded that portion. The rear, quite large and with claws still attached, didn't look too bad. Fair bit of meat. Had a fragrance that I would not call 'pleasing'. I brined it over night and took it over to the kitchen.

Rinsed in cold water several times, then began trimming everything that didn't look good. Put a rack in a roasting pan, put in a turkey bag and covered the bottom with sliced onion and celery. Put in the beaver, meat side up and seasoned with salt and pepper. Put in the oven for 2 hours at 325 deg. Didn't smell too bad while roasting. The roasting time was fine, then removed from the bag and deboned as much as I could, and cubed. The odor still wasn't what I would call terribly appetizing, though one guy disagreed. I tasted a couple chunks and it wasn't too bad. Few other guys tried it and liked it. Who knew?

There is a fairly stout grease that cooked out of it that was not easy to clean off the equipment. In spite of the ingredients in sauce, I think the beaver will lend a flavor, though I doubt it will over power the dish. All in all, not a bad deal.

I report on the result of the dish.

SSE
those glands mentioned earlier are a huge item to take care of. If it was frozen with them intact that may be your smell issue.
We have had it twice at our game dinner. First time with out knowing about the glands. WOW!
Second was prepped properly and there was none left at the end...
Go Beavers.


Bob

Really?! man we really gotta start watching our titles around here, lol.

Didn't end up with too much of the cubed beaver meat, but it was a nice addition the green chile sauce, which included about 3 times as much pork. When it was cooking everybody who stirred it thought it was fine, but I could detect that beaver fragrance. When it went out on the serving table to go over rice, most of the nearly 100 in attendance gobbled it up.

As an aside, the full menu:

Venison live pate�
Walleye Chowder
Green chile sauce with beaver (hot and spicy)
Duck breast Marsala
Goose Pad Ped (Thai stir-fry with coconut milk and red curry)
Pheasant/squirrel/rabbit crust-less potpie
Raccoon Swedish meatballs in mushroom sauce
Corned Venison
Stuffed Rolled Venison
Stew containing big horn sheep, mountain goat, fallow deer and mouflon
Roast turkey
Cole Slaw
White Rice
Hard crusted Italian dinner rolls

I just lick it all night

Let this be a lesson to ya...

I guess I'm pretty much screwed.
Because I smoke durin' it!

That would'a been OK...

like mine nice and moist and stuffed with a juicy johnsonville brat thats ready to explode.

One of the clubs I belong to was given 5 large beaver by F&G that had been trapped.... The guys boned it all out, cubed it, marinated it in I am not sure what, put it on shish-ka-bob squiers and put them on a charcoal grill.

There was everything from squirrel to caribou but the only thing better than the grilled beaver was one of the moose dishes. I went back for thirds as few people even tried it because it was listed as BEAVER....

Bob

beaver - the other dark meat.

My surprise 4 pages and no one said raw!! Clint

What!!! That would have been my first guess.....Num num num.......