cooken' coon

[Roseofsharon]

My son has gotten into trapping and has trapped a couple of racoons.

 

He wants to make some coon-hash (or something similar) to take to grandmas for Thanksgiving (hee, hee, hee, - that is what they get for assigning me potato salad for the last 18 years!)

 

anyway... he wants to make a hash -or actually anything tasty with this racoon meat. Any ideas? Recipes? I have never cooked (or eaten) a racoon before so have no idea what to advise him.

 

Thanks

 

[Guest Guest]

If it is young coon, then fry it, use your favorite fried chicken recipe.

 

If it is old coon then make chili, use your favorite chili recipe.

 

I like mimicking ground beef so I cut the meat off of the bone and ground it. You can also cut the meat off of the bone in cubes or cook it and shred it.

 

I take the bone and make a soup, cooking off the rest of the meat, adding carrots, celery, onions and anything else I have on hand.

 

I am PMing you...check you mail.

 

 

[Bamboo]

Here is a recipe for Roast Raccoon from "Cooking Wild Game" by Zack Hanle. I have never tried it, but I got a really good price on the cookbook, so I bought it

[Guest Guest]

Raccoon meat is very delicious when prepared right. But it is also pretty fatty and the fat is laced into the meat so it cannot be removed as easily as you would a farm animal or a deer.

 

The best way to prepare a coon (young and old) and remove the fat from it is to slowly boil it (simmer) for a couple of hours. This is best done in cut up pieces, not whole, unless you have a kittle big enough for the task.

 

After a couple hours of simmering it, add a couple of tablespoons of baking soda to the boiling water with the meat still in it. It will foam up a lot, this is normal. When the foaming has stopped, remove from the stove and drain all the water off. Thoroughly rinse each piece of meat to remove all the soda water from it. Also wash out the pot that it was cooked in. Not necessary to use soap, just a really good rinsing to remo0ve all the baking soda water and foam.

 

Place the meat back into the pot and fill with water again. Place on a lit burner and cook (Slowly) for another 1/2 hour. Take off stove and it is ready to use.

 

After this process, you can prepare it in cooking just as you would any other farm-raised meat. It makes really great tasting stews. My Mom used to fix a stew with rice that would stretch and feed 9. There were 9 in my family and all were pretty hardy eaters.

 

It is also great baked, fried and my favorite is battered and deep fat fried. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!

 

Doing the process I above described will not only remove the fat (The fat is really nasty tasting), but will make even an old coon nice and tender and will also remove the strong taste to the meat and give it a really nice, milder flavor that will melt in your mouth.

 

Let us know how it turns out and how you choose to fix it.

 

Hill