Porcupine Stew

[Bowspirit]

Feeling good enough with the way my porcupine turned out tonight to post the process I used in cooking him. Didn't really use exact measurements, so you'll just have to wing it like I did...

You'll need:
-About 4 or 5 cans of beer; your choice
-Olive oil
-Seasoning to taste; I used salt, pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder
-Lipton's onion soup mix packet
-Veggies; again, your choice, but I used your basic stew choices of potatoes, carrots, peas, and onions.
-Of course, front and back legs of a young porcupine.

First off, you'll need the beer. After drinking your last can, you should be ready for the whole skinning and gutting process. It is pretty bad...

 In all seriousness, I started off by browning the legs in a frying pan with olive oil and all seasonings aside from the Onion soup mix. Not much, just a light browning on all sides.
 Once this was accomplished, I placed the legs, along with my veggies and contents of Onion soup packet, in a simple slow cooker. I poured in enough water to almost cover the top of everything, set it on low, and let it cook for about 9 hours. With everything deemed ready, I pulled the meat from each leg bone and re-added it to the pot.
 That's it...it was that simple. You'd be amazed how close to pot roast porkies are in both flavor and texture. Now, it's not my favored small game. Heck, I'd pass one up in favor of say, a rabbit or squirrel. But all in all, it's pretty good.  

 Just brace yourself for the task that is gutting them. That's not so pleasant...

[Jeremy]

Oh come on, what's the problem with skinning and gutting them?  :D

Thankfully the one I ate I didn't have the clean!

[Hess]

Are p pines greasy?

[Stone Knife]

Your a stand up guy Chris  

[tradtusker]

nice i like the 4/5 that is a winning start to any recipe.

thanks for the idea of doing them in a slow cooker!

we eat the porcupines in South Africa, most people don't though but the meat is very good, however you have to be extremely careful not to touch the skin an then the meat, change gloves and knives after every process!

 fry it up with unhealthy amounts of butter bit of salt, pepper and dry BBQ spice.

[Bowspirit]

Thanks for the advice, tradtusker. I've always wondered if you could shoot the crested porcupines over in Africa. Wonder how different they taste from their north american cousins...

[Killdeer]

I was wondering about the don't touch meat after skin warning.

I agree with Stone Knife, you ARE a stand-up guy, Chris. Now scrub that crock-pot...and hand me the last beer.   :D

Killdeer  

[Kingstaken]

I'd have to incraese the amount of beer to 24 cans cause I'd have to be completely drunk to eat it...  

[Bowspirit]

I'm not a stand-up guy...just a hungry one...  

I do, though, want to mention two ingredients I left out. One was several dashes of wostechire (sp?) sauce. The other ingredient was two spoonfuls of instant coffee granules. They don't give the stew any coffee aftertaste, but more importantly; the help curb the gamey taste in wild meats. I don't use it on everything I kill, but this porkie just seemed to need it. And, in fact, it helped...

[stickgunner]

p pine is great!!!!!! I harvested one in north Idaho and my little three year old daughter helped me skin it out with no issues ( thats an old wives tale) and fried up one hined quater with a slight dash of salt and cayenne. it was GREAT. I made some jerky up using a spice called cowboy cayenne. 2 tbl spoons and hot water, let it sit a day and smoke a few hours. awesome stuff. I took it to church and feed it to all my buddies and they could not figure what it was. I had one guy tell me it was the best Elk jerky he had ever had, then i told him what it was and he said it was nasty. He latter admited it was the thought of what it was. I thought it tasted like beef and rabbit. AND I USED THE SAME KNIFE FOR THE ENTIRE PROCESS GUY,S, CMON WITH ALL THE WIVES TALES. Where did anyone ever get the idea with the knife issue?