Skip to main content

Squirrel Nut Stew

Spent a weekend in the woods and collected a few mushies plus some fresh squirrel!

I've also had a bumper crop of sweet chestnuts and walnuts from trees down the road.

So i had a superb stew made largely from wild local food, apart from the flour (Waitrose farm in Hampshire), thyme (Dennis' allottment), salt (Maldon's, Essex), oil (olive but local rapeseed would be perfectly good substitute. I just happen to have a five gallon bottle of olive oil that was given so am making good use of it!) and carrots (Abel & Cole).

Here is my recipe for squirrel stew, incorporating Tristram's suggestions about the first stage for the meat:

Preparation stage:
1 squirrel, skiined and prepared (see Flickr for details of how to do this)
A few ounces of flour with salt and thyme mixed in
Oil

For the stew
1 or more penny buns (cep mushroom)
A few spiny puffballs
Handful of Amethyst Deceivers
Handful of sweet chestnuts, peeled
Handful of walnuts
Water
6 medium size Chopped carrots
Spoonful of apple cheese


1. Chop and put the carrots in to boil
2. Toss the squirrel meat in the flour mix and fry on a medium heat until nicely browned all over.
3. Tip off some of the carrot water if you think there is too much for the stew. Put the squirrels in with the carrots and add a spoonful of apple cheese or other flavouring. Leave to continue simmering
4. Add the assorted nuts and mushrooms to the frying pan and fry until nicely browned. keep an eye on the stew mix in the meantime.
5. Add to the stew and continue to heat for a bit.
6.Eat!

You could have potatoes with it for filling. The flour on the squirrel helps to make the stew itself very thick and creamy.

The key to this recipe is a) collecting nice things from the woods or local streets and b) getting the timing right so the carrots dont go too mushy.

It is very sweet and very nutty and very autumnal. The ceps really were very good indeed and the mix of the wild foods gives it a deep complex flavour.

Penny buns in the woods

Ingredients for stew: Squirrel, spiny puffballs, ceps and sweet chestnuts courtesy richmond council


Walnuts are big - whats left after processing is not much! Debris in background (subsequently used to dye a scarf and a bag dark brown), edible walnut bits in the front.


Squirrel stew!


Apple cheese recipe (click the pic to see it larger)

Comments

  1. Anonymous7:14 pm

    wow this is mad/deranged/brilliant/interesting I cant believe you had squirrel. How do you catch a squirrel in the first place? I wish there were nice chestnuts in Victoria Park, but it just ain't the case... :-(

    ReplyDelete
  2. spider3:00 pm

    This particular squirrel and seven others were shot by the landowner. Shooting seems a bit excessive for a little critter like that but its the easiest way I think. it is a bit weird. but I do think also is weird to find it weird when there is nothing weird about eating chicken or lamb or cows. Its all the eating of animals. Seeing the process of change from "cute fluffy animal" to "lunch" is very interesting. It makes you realise you too are just a series of delicious joints and yukky bits under the skin. It gives a different understanding of what life is.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life Returns to Notment - and my soul

It has been such a long time, we had so much cold and rain and snow this winter that I have hardly been down to the notment at all. A couple of weeks ago I did go, and collected some baby Alexanders , which went down very well with the family. They are very herbal, like fennel, aniseed or celery but stronger and with a distinct flavour. They work very well chopped up with mashed potato or in an omelette. Then yesterday I went back for a propoer look at the spring life. Many of the fragile little seedlings planted last year in their fleece-poo blankets are still alive if not exactly thriving - including a sage, some fennel cuttings, a feverfew and calamint. Sadly though, the huge ants nest has gone since the breeze blocks were sold to alocal builder who has been able to reuse them. I had been hoping to provide a new home for the ants, but failed to act in time and so now just have to wait and see if they managed to survive or not. I am fairly ignorant about the habits of ants, but...
5 comments
Read more

Water, Water, Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Drink

Water, water, everywhere, and it's all a lot of poncey crap from Italy and France, beautifully packaged and carefully marketed, that wends its way into the receptacles of Londoners who use it as prop to help them make believe their city is chic like Paris when it is nothing of the sort, it is just the grubby old capital of a country that obtains its water from across the sea. The point I am trying to make, through this un-dignified rant, is that water is indeed everywhere and it all tastes the bloody same. Perrier, for instance, though I could have easily picked out Badoit, Barisart or Pellegrino, arrives on the shelves of our abundant supermarkets in sexy looking, stylish bottles that are pleasing to the human eye. There is little wrong with this, beauty has its place. The home should be filled with gorgeous things. But it's the human tongue that counts here and mine says the only dissimilar thing its buds can gauge between the continental waters and our very own mountain spri...
3 comments
Read more

Snow and Honey

Monday was a day famous for Snow, but for me it was also about honey. I visited Linda who has recently started keeping bees. We processed some honey and she very kindly gave me a pot of golden sweetness at the end. I learnt about mites, and deaths, and bee dancing and pollen and nectar and propolis (the red stuff in the pot - very sticky and it stains the hands, the bees make it from tree resin), and how the bees tenderly care for the grubs and feed them bees milk, and how the worker bees come out of the growing chambers and do housekeeping first for a few days, and then nursing, and then they guard the entrance, and then they start foraging only after all that. The pics show how we scraped the honey out of the combs, avoiding letting pollen and nectar into the honey, and let it drip through a net to separate it from the wax - collecting the was crumbs for melting down and further separation from the honey that is left; propolis; and the honey pots that were filled. 20 in total, from a...
4 comments
Read more