What's your favorite way?

always use to cook them in a casserole with plenty of Wild Rice.....with Worcestershire Sauce mixed in...
or an alternative is wild rice and cream of mushroom soup....

Pan fried with biscuits and gravy.

Yes pan fried with gravy and biscuits is hard to beat. The old ones are sectioned into 6 pieces and placed in a crock pot for 2.5 hours then fried. They can also be left in a little longer then deboned. Makes great barbecue sandwiches.

Section them, soak them in buttermilk overnight, throw in the crockpot with some onions and peppers and seasoning of your choice, cook until tender, debone, then add the barbecue sauce of your choice. BBQ squirrel sandwiches are great.

I like 'em braised. Then I finish them with a long simmer in gravy

I just dust them with flour and fry them in an oiled pan, on low to medium. Just the hind legs.

Brunswick Stew. That, or Pennsylvania Dutch slippery beef pot pie with squirrel substituted for beef.

Young ones, fried, with cornbread and gravy. Old ones pressure cooked, de-boned, then throw the meat back in a crockpot with chopped onions, mushroom slices, and sweet-baby-rays BBQ.

Winner!Winner!

Squirrel meat is tough. Think about it-they make their living pulling themselves around up and down trees. They are much more palatable when cooked slowly and simmered than when they are fried. I like fried squirrel too, but I prefer them with biscuits and gravy. By the time squirrel season rolled around, we were often out of venison, and my brother and I were expected to put some protein on the table. It was usually squirrel, shot out of the towering beech trees of northeast Ohio.

Classic, traditional, and delicious.

Used to pat em in flour and fry in a covered electric skillet. Been 20 yrs since I bothered.


Now, I just kill them wholesale and toss them into a ditch (after posing with pics for internet attention)

They fall under the Pol Pot provision around here. The little bastards cut all the acorns down in September and the turkeys eat them before November.

Starting whacking the little fuggers so the acorns would hang on till November in order to keep some deer around.

Be easier if my "Daddeh" left me a thousand bags of deer corn when he signed the farm over to me.

Never did this myself but told by a friend. Fry and then finish off in a pressure cooker. He said that even the old ones were tender. Kinda like the original Kentucky fried chicken. miles

In case I missed anyone posting it, I have dropped them in a Mirro pressure cooker for a quick 10 mins. That will soften them up, transfer into a skillet.

Or you could go balls-out and go 20 mins in the pressure cooker to reduce them and debone them. Then you could proceed to making your stews.

If any of you dudes have a split tail in the home, they can operate those Instapot pressure cookers.

The instapot, pressure cooking after slight pan fried would be the way to go.

Then into a stew, pot pie etc.

Young are pan fried and and the older tougher ones are made into squirrel and dumplings.

How exactly does one slow cook squirrel (older ones)...

How do you tell them apart (young vs. old).

Frying young ones should be easy, but with the older ones are you slow cooking them in broth ?

I hunt where there are plenty of big old fox squirrels - not sure that matters but they aren’t small.

PM Maddog, he is your huckleberry !

Paul, as you likely know, squirrels way south of you are larger than those small types around Dryden.

Simmer them in chicken broth until they tender up a bit. Then flour and fry. Make gravy and mashed taters

I wish that I could duplicate the way my grandmother cooked them. A very thin, dark gravy, served over rice. Not tuff....simply delicious! memtb

I used to pan fry and end up with gravy etc.
Not worth all the bother and mess anymore to me.
I just boil them in water till tender, then salt and pepper and eat like cold chicken.
Great for snacks in the field or on the water.

I was expecting something more like this:

Make dumplings out of them

Crock Pot with onions & gravy. I cook them whole.

Never had any different & I can’t get enough. Wish I had equal access to Frog Legs.

Out west now, so it's been a long time since. As a kid back east, skinning ease was my indicator. If it peeled like rabbit it was young of the year. If it was similar to pulling paint off a fire hydrant, it had some age on it.

come to think about it - where is mad dog on this thread ?

Some good recipes. I might add that when pan frying squirrels, Use butter and place a brick wrapped in aluminum foil atop. Insures a nice bark on the outside and moist and tender inside.
Fried Limb rooster is a rare treat.

I heard you were supposed to fry them up, make gravy, throw away the squirrel and drink the gravy!

fry the young ones, stew the old ones.

My mom used to stew them with gravy. The ol lady has fried them for me before like fried chicken.

Similar to how my grandpa would describe how to prepare carp - take 2 cedar shingles, place cleaned and scaled carp between them,wire the shingles together and place in oven or over a campfire. When the shingles start to scorch, remove from the heat source and clip the wires, open the shingles, discard the carp and eat the shingles.

Disagreed with grandpa about the carp, too.

Down here in South Louisiana, I start off quartering them up and seasoning them with salt and red pepper. In a cast iron black pot with about 1/4 to 1/2'' of cooking oil I brown them(basically fry them to the point of cooked) then take them out. I then cook the 1-2 onions, depending on size and amount of squirrels, and cook them down to the point of carmelizing. Then put the squirrels back in and continue to cook and adding water as it cooks down. Once the gravy is thick and the meat starts to separate from the bone, I then lower the heat to a simmer for another 20 minutes or so and serve over medium grain rice. By far my favorite wild game to eat!!!!!

Cooking Squirrels:
- - - - - - - - - - - -

If they're road-kill I just put them in the toaster.

That’s funny!!

^^^This. Or pan fried, then baked in cream of mushroom soup and served with mashed taters and squirrel gravy... Need to bust out the ol 10-22 and go get me a mess of them now...

I boil them until tender. Then bread and Fry until golden brown

-Jake

Almost choked on my drink - Damn that is funny

Old ones are bigger, have tough skin and big balls. I grew up eating squirrel and don't miss it a lot.

I skin and clean then freeze them till I have enough for 7 pints in the pressure canner.

After canning they are tender and ready to pan fry real fast, make gravy while eggs are scrambling and biscuits are browning.

I was on page one. I haven't mentioned my Limb Chicken Chowder. You can find it down in the small game hunting section. I'm getting ready to pressure cook about 15 of the lil boogers this morning, then just put the deboned meat in a bag for future use in the chowder, crockpot BBQ, etc.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/wild-chef/2012/02/new-england-style-cream-based-squirrel-chowder

Here is the Limb Chicken Chowder recipe.




fried squirrel.



gravy.



squirrel pot pie

Young sq are tender. Grill or chicken fry them.

Hawk, the backstraps are great in the back behind the ribs.

Only way I ever had them was fried and that's as far as I needed to go.

I throw them in a crock pot with salt and pepper and some water and eat them like that, picking out the bones. Kinda tedious but tastes good.

Just pressure cooked 13 old ones. Pulled the meat, and it's in the freezer. Got about 8 more I'm gonna do later this week.

Squirrel in gravy is good. I usually brown the cut up squirrel. Cook down chopped onions pepper and garlic. Put the meat back in. Add some beef or chicken stock, worchestershire and sherry or wine. Some herbs then cover and simmer till tender.

I've never thought about canning them. I may try that over the next few weeks.

How many squirrels/quarters do you fit into each pint? How much pressure and for how long?

I make a rice and gravy similar to Sako270wsm. I also have fried them in a electric skillet, smothered in gravy with a sliced tomato.